Project 221 through 224

Ask a Girlfriend

She would probably know. She may even know what a kohlrabi tastes like. I choose to ask rather than try. Cowardly, I know. But I’m a grown-up now and you can’t make me. It is interesting looking, though. My girlfriends are used to me taking my camera everywhere I go, taking “interesting” photos. Some weeks have themes. Some don’t. This one didn’t, until I looked at the pictures. Each one was taken while I was with a girlfriend. Not the same one every time. I remember my first girlfriend’s name. It was Micah, and we walked to school together when I lived in Texas. I only knew her for a year before we moved. When you’re seven and you move several states away, and then a couple of months later you have moved out of the country, it’s hard to stay in touch. I didn’t stay in touch. If you think about the important times in your life, there’s always a girlfriend there to talk to. First crush. First kiss. First love. First heartbreak. Second heartbreak. Third heartbreak. Okay. You get the drift. Sometimes our girlfriends stay with us a long time, and sometimes they drift in and out of our lives like a scent on a breeze. But we remember them. And sometimes we reconnect with them later. And it’s like you’ve never really been apart, but you have years of memories to share with each other, so you felt you were still there for them, and they were still there for you. And they were. And you were. Because being a girlfriend is more than physically being there. It is cosmic. It is calling up a girlfriend in the middle of the night because you have been told one of your children has cancer and she doesn’t tell you to call her back when it’s light out. It is going to the hospital when a girlfriend is in labor and her husband is out of town but is trying to get to the hospital in time (and he did). But she wouldn’t have been alone if he didn’t make it. It is knowing that your girlfriends like you in spite of yourself. It’s knowing you can have an overnightparty...even at this age...and watch live events going on that are history, and you are sharing them with tea and crumpets, or Millionaire’s Coffee and tissues. It’s having a girls’ week-end and watching all three Lord of the Rings movies in a row. It’s making something up so I don’t have to taste kohlrabi. And a turnip by any other name is still a turnip...but maybe a more interesting photo.