Several months ago, I met a very special person on Facebook. Our friendship began, and a plan was made for her to travel to the USofA to visit. When the trip was first mentioned, it really didn't seem like it would be a reality. Now it has become a reality, and my Australian friend and I had a wonderful week together.
It's easy to chat on Facebook. You can be on your best behavior, you can delete things before you send them, and you can impress a person with your portrayed perfection. To be together in person is a different story. In person you see and hear the reality. Lill and I started off being honest, sharing our feelings about life, about relationships, about children, about work, and when she arrived, it was like an old friend came home for a visit.
My kids tell me that Lill is my Australian clone, and if that is the case, then I would be friends with myself, because I love Lill and the wonderful friendship that we have established. Her visit was much anticipated, and even though she came at a busy time for me, it made the busyness more enjoyable, the days more happy, and less stressful. She made me laugh, she made me see my life, my family and New Mexico in a new light. She made me think about our language, and even though we both speak English, she says many words differently I will never again say the word water without laughing and remembering Lill. Nor will I say path and master without wondering how they are really pronounced, and how did I say them so differently?
The two of us in her little rental car had one little adventure after another. Sal riding along in the back seat felt compelled to set us straight a time or two, and that was fine. We just let her have her say, and then we enjoyed her play acting when we arrived home, and she felt compelled to act out our antics of the day for the sake of Julie and Jacob, and for telling stories. I am especially fond of Sal's reenactment of our brief stop over in Galisteo. I wish I had taking a video of her reenactment. Very entertaining, and right on the mark. I don't care what Sal says, I do love those mailboxes in Galisteo and I don't know why.
I've never really enjoyed shopping, until I went shopping with Lill. The joy of the best price cannot be surpassed with the joy Lill feels for it. I can just hear her, "Aye, Creeesh. Look at this price! At home this would be.....I must have it, don't you reckon? I could never get this at home for this price." "Creesh, look at this! What'da ya reckon? Will this color look good?" Shopping became a thrill, and I didn't mind carrying 90% of the stock on my arm to the dressing room for a session of trying on clothes. I teased her about all her clothes, and told her that the "blokes" would be turning their heads for a second and third glimpse when she walked into the room. The color and and vibrancy that is Lill just makes people look again, and then they smile. I know, because I smiled a lot this past week.
It was a joy to walk into the kitchen in the mornings and see her sitting at the dining room table, computer up and running, and a smile on her face. "Good morning! Did you have a good night? What's the plan for today?", and we would be off.
I hope to go to Australia to visit her and Sal. I know I will be welcomed there, and I know it will feel like I've been there before. I know when I see her it will be as if we never parted ways, and that there were no oceans between us. I know that she plans to make me drive on the wrong side of the road, and I know she will fall forward when I slam on the brakes. I know that when I want to go to the right, she will be there to remind me to stay left. I know all the excuses to have when I want to stay right, and she yells for me to go left. I know all the excuses, because she taught them to me. And then.... we will laugh, and we might take a picture of me going right when I should be going left. I will just tell her that I was tired and everything is backwards in Australia.
Maybe by the time I go to Australia to visit Lill and Sal, Lill will have made good on her promise to introduce drive up banking, and will have a chain of Sonic drive ins open and succeeding. She will have introduced all of Aussieland to cherry limeade chillers, and she will be taking her earnings to the bank, and taking those earnings only to a drive up bank. Sonic and drive through banking will be common place in Aussieland, and I will think nothing of it.
By the time I arrive for my visit, the "blokes" on bikes will have rebelled about wearing helmets and I won't even notice. Babe Ruth, Reeces peanut buttercups, and S'mores will be common place as well. So common place that I will just take them for granted. If we decide to have Frito pie, it won't be a big deal, because Lill will have opened up the shipping to Frito Lay. I might have to wait until I arrive back home to satisfy my green chili cravings. I failed to convince them it's close to impossible to live without green chili.
By the time I arrive for my visit, Sal will have met her one and only. You know who he is. He's the one with the pick up truck, and not just any old pickup truck, but a Dodge Ram. No decent man would drive a FORD and win Sal's heart. He will have horses for Sal to love, and a horse "float" to haul them in. The horses will all have rugs, a personal dentist and vet, as well as a weekly "mass awge".
I've been blessed with an abundance of friends, and all of them have added so much to my life. Without my friends my life would be so bland. The joy of friendship is without measure, and Sal and Lill have just added more riches to my friendship basket. If I could put all the joy into a basket, it would be full to over flowing, and like Lill often remarked when taking pictures, "Pictures just don't capture the beauty and the magnitude of it." Words, as with the pictures, just can't capture all the beauty and magnitude of friendship... and the joys of it.
Cretia
Cretia
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