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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
| Never Ending Story... |
| 03.19.05 (1:35 pm) [edit] |
|
Michigan Avenue in March. The wind attacked our faces like steel wool. As we rounded the corner of Deleware my ears were completely numb--like when your best friend sandwiches your earlobes between two ice cubes in order to pierce them. Our quest for a Starbuck’s venti caramel latte found us adrift in a sea of faces, dark colored suits, and cell phones. I felt plain and drab, like Minute rice. The clothes in the windows are crisp and polished…with matching shoes and shiney accessories. The mannequins shame me by blatantly boasting the hips of a twelve-year-old. Sixty-eight dollars for a tank top. I can’t even afford the tan and Slimfast that it would take for me to try on a $68 tank top. Still, it is beautiful. A venti skim latte with caramel syrup and only two shots of espresso please. All men are created equal at Starbuck’s. I strike up a conversation with a beautiful young woman. She is confident, charming, and funny. Her name is Megan and for the first time in a very long time, I look into her eyes, listen carefully to her words, and try to discover just who it is that she has become in the past two years. It was our first "grown-up" trip together. We talk about economics and how many tank tops we could buy at the Goodwill half price sale for $68. We have come a long way since back-to-school shopping at Lord & Taylor. We smile over the top of our paper coffee cups. Of all the things to miss in life, that’s not one of them. A song comes on the radio. I like it. The strings make me want to weep; but, the notes move higher and higher up the scale and I feel invincible and strong. Maybe it is the background music to a movie. A movie about two women in the windy city getting to know each other over a hot cup of legal stimulants. At first I thought that in order to move forward, I must start writing an entirely new book. As we walked past Prada, tears well up in my eyes. Megan and I exchanged a glance and smiled. "Remember", Megan said, "when we were little and Ali screamed because the view out the hotel window was a three-story GAP?" I smiled at my daughter and kissed her cheek. I'm glad that I got in line behind such a beautiful, sensitive and brave young woman. There will never be a trip to Chicago where Ali is not along. There will never be the need for a new book. My entire life...every page that has already been written, is a preface and introduction for the blank page ahead of me. It is simply time to begin a new chapter. Simply, painfully, excitingly, mournfully, hesitantly, and joyfully. ...and there they sat, these two women in the windy city, one beautiful and one dressed as plainly as Minute Rice, sharing stories and getting to know each other over the melancholy sound of strings and a Starbuck's venti caramel latte. |
posted by: janewaywannabe (reply)
post date: 03.19.05 (4:19 pm)
beautifully written
posted by: LoriSchuster (reply)
post date: 03.20.05 (6:19 pm)
Reply to: janewaywannabe
thank you. Megan and I had a wonderful two days. there is some comfort in knowing that despite the fact that everything is overshadowed by this incredible loss... it is still possible to laugh again. thank you for reading and taking the time to comment.
posted by: alli (reply)
post date: 03.20.05 (6:25 pm)
Lori- just wanted to check-in and say hi! You're writtings are beautiful. I hope i can talk to you soon. You are amazing.
posted by: LoriSchuster (reply)
post date: 03.20.05 (6:41 pm)
Reply to: alli
Hi Alli! I was just talking to Kayla online and it seems so strange not to see you guys. I miss you. Thank you for checking in and saying hi.
posted by: Stacey (reply)
post date: 03.21.05 (9:21 pm)
Lori,
Thanks for sharing. I have those moments when the moment is cinematic and you are full. Hold fast to them... we (at least I) will keep praying.
Grace, beauty, humor, strength.
Alison Haley Cloud
Nov. 16, 1987-March 1, 2005
