Best Friends

 I would like to say that I am feeling better and the pain is gone. I’d like to say that, but it isn’t true. On the other hand, whining about is isn’t going to help in the long run, so today I’m going to write about what I’m going to do tomorrow

 

But first I must digress.

 

Fifty years ago this month I was 4 years old, soon to be 5, living in a suburb of Philadelphia, and I met a new girl from CT, who was much older-almost 5 ½. She had a pudgy face and a sturdy, skinny body and curly black hair and her name was Peggy. She lived down the block and across the street, and while I wasn’t allowed to go that far from home, I ventured beyond my boundaries, and we became Best Friends.

 

Fifty years later, we still are.

 

We have loved and supported each other through four marriages, three divorces, two kids (10 years apart ), my move to CT, her cross country moves to CA and back to PA, through ups and downs and depressions and coming out and abusive family situations and the death of her parents and brother and my mother’s cancer and a whole lot more. At times, we fought like cats and dogs-our mothers, who also became good friends, used to laugh at our terrible tempers, and shake their heads in amazement that we always made up.

 

Our last big fight, many years ago, was a doozy, over where to camp in a National Park. After screaming at each other like the 5 year olds we still carry inside, we stomped off in opposite directions, leaving out poor (first) husbands goggling after us. After discussing how terrible the 1000 mile ride back to CA in a VW camper was going to be, they tentatively chose a site they liked- a first- and set up camp. An hour later, we reappeared together, talking a mile a minute, and could not understand why they were goggling at us again. Our mothers could have told them!

 

But I digress.

 

Last autumn, while I was struggling to regain the use of my right hand and my ability to read, she moved back to her home state CT!  For the first time since childhood, we live close together! She helped enormously during the 6 months I couldn’t drive. Rene is as glad to have her here as I am. We can get together for breakfast out, and talk on the phone free, and have supper together, and play together! It is wonderful.

 

One of the most amazing things about Peg is her ability to create beautiful and whimsical things.  She majored in sculpture at college (as practical as my Religious Studies major), has an incredible eye for color, had a ceramics studio for years, owned an artists’ gallery, and more recently as she began to re-invent herself,took up quilting. Her work is vibrant and colorful and unexpected, and her fabric collection is abundantly overflowing her new quilting room- but in an organized fashion, of course.

 

Early last spring, when I was again suffering a downwards spiral, she announced she was going to make me a quilt. She took me off to a quilting store where she helped me pick out a couple of dozen fabrics in blues and purples and roses and pinks and yellows-all colors I love. Then she showed me quilt pattern books. Oh my! Too many choices. Finally I asked her to narrow it down to several easier ones, and chose one made up of lots of squares with four smaller squares inside- I’ll have to ask her the proper name tomorrow, I’ve forgotten.

 

It is done now and here finally is my point of all this; tomorrow we are going to RI to see a quilter who has a long armed machine big enough to finish the whole thing! I cannot wait! She has a waiting list, but it should be done before Christmas. If I can ever learn how to use our camera, I promise to put up a picture, for it will be one of my most treasured possessions. As is Peg a most treasured friend.

 

Blessings, Margo

 

picture from: www.anygivensaturday.com/ cgi-bin/board/cuteca...