For All the Girls I've Loved Before

Build me up, buttercup.

Grateful for the girls in my life.

For Punch, who planned on asking Santa at Macy's to bring her a chicken sandwich for Christmas. And who pushed a weathered white plush poodle around in her carriage today, with three bananas in case the poodle got hungry. How old is your baby? I asked. Sixty-seven, she said.

For the teen who wore a pretty black dress and black tights and a ruffled ballerina-looking headband. Who seemed poised and elegant helping out at our neighbors' party, slipping hors d'oeuvres in and out of the oven, clearing trays, arranging canapes in tandem with a friend. She is not perfect, nor should she be. She's finding her way through the world just like everyone else. Yet she does have some perfectly lovely qualities and gifts she can polish and buff. Reminder to self: She is she, she is not me.

For Natalie Wood, forever the spunky girl of Christmas in Miracle on 34th Street.

For the girls I grew up with--for Sis dressing for high school on dark school mornings, communicating with Barbara K., whose bedroom window was directly across from ours. For the girlfriends I chatted with endlessly on the black rotary phone. The friends I was a Girl Scout with. The friends I ran with, and wrote with. The friends I ate lunch with.

For the young girls on our block now, especially the three who played with Punch today, laughing and swinging and pulling a wagon--taking a young visitor under their collective wing.

For the girls who grew up into the strong, kind, compassionate, brilliant mothers and friends I am blessed to know today. For my nieces, who made me an aunt.

For the neighborhood girls I spent childhood days with--swinging, singing, pushing my doll stroller, roller skating, playing hopscotch, swimming, walking to town, discovering clover and tiny buttercups at the park.

For my grandmother Alice, who had girlish qualities and a twinkle in her dark eyes until the end.

And for Sugar, because she is also most certainly a girl.

For the spirit of girlhood everywhere--pretty but powerful, sweet but smart.

Good night.