Keeper of My Girlhood Dreams

This was the original Dixon Homestead Library in our town. We climbed steep steps to get upstairs. The house was built in the late 1700s by Derick Banta, a Revolutionary soldier. Sarah Dixon willed it to the town in 1929.

Figgy tonight. She is naturally auburnish, especially with summer sun streaks, but.....

As Fig was coloring her hair [L'Oreal Intense Red Copper] upstairs in the bathroom--don't ask, the girl likes experimenting, against my advice that she should embrace her natural shade--applying makeup and generally babbling with one, then two, then three of her school friends, I was on the phone with my childhood friend Lorraine tonight.

Our chat was long overdue. We've been playing phone tag. And suffice it to say that life doesn't always deal us the hand we hope for and expect.

Hey guys, this is one of my closest high school friends on the phone, I said proudly to Olivia, Maggie and Charlene, hoping in my heart that they and Figgy might stay in touch as life marches on--in studded boots and cheetah fur Creepers.

I've been thinking of Lorraine a lot during Fig's senior year of high school. We grew up together. We walked to Uncle Frank's pizza parlor, where Lorraine bought me a slice for my birthday in fifth or sixth grade. Later, we talked jeans, body image, haircuts, boys. We walked to the Yarn Center, a Dumont shop where we learned to crochet vests in the seventies. [The two ladies there also helped me crochet a pair of gray mittens for my good Irish grandfather, whose fingers were crooked and bent.] We laughed tonight over memories of Lorraine's 16th birthday, when I went over to her house for Saturday dinner. Her dad was a kind, hardworking shoemaker, an Italian immigrant, and her mom famously made her own pizza!---and every Saturday night, she broiled steak. I got a backyard lounge chair for my birthday, Lorraine said. And my mother took pictures of us sitting on it that night.

Next week, Moey and I are going to meet Lorraine halfway and have lunch. Should be fun.

Good night. 

TCOY

1. Support group.
2. Walked Puff around block with H.
3. Have been listening on my laptop to the audio version of The Outermost House, one of my favorite books about Cape Cod. Sis gave me the CD version for my birthday!
4. Made applesauce.