When you’re my kind of Texan (i.e., the kind with the big accent and rural roots) you say the word like that: comp’ny. When I lived in New York I think I usually tried to say it with the three syllables — com-pa-ny. Comp’ny just means someone’s coming to stay with you; they may or may not be stressful, they may or may not be the kind of person/people you have to dress up for and be “on” for. Comp’ny just means guests. Even visiting family is comp’ny. Marnie and Tom are coming to Austin over the Christmas holidays and they’ll be staying with me. Even they (and even just Marnie, for that matter) are comp’ny.
So late Friday night, Sherlock and Peggy arrived. It was a very long day for them — a day of work, then an hour-long drive to the airport, a flight to Detroit, a flight to Austin, and arriving at what was to them 11:30pm. So we ate some snacks and drank some wine and talked while they unwound enough to be ready for sleep, and I was just so so happy to be in their presence. SO happy. I love those people so much.
Saturday we wandered around, ate a lot of good food, went to two bookstores, watched the bats fly out from under the Congress Avenue bridge, ate more good food, and then while we were walking off our dinner, we stopped in a haberdashery. “No, I’m not going to try on any hats. I am just NOT a hat person. And now I don’t have the right hair. No, you guys go ahead, I’ll watch.” “No, really. I am not a hat person. Seriously.”
And then Kitty, a fuschia-haired woman who worked in the shop, approached me and put a hat on me. And not just that, but a style of hat that I’d have argued to the death I could not wear. A cloche. She’d overheard me and apparently wanted to prove me dead wrong.
I was so enamored, I bought the hat. Obviously. And then, while Sherlock and Peggy were trying on hats, I walked through the shop trying on one after another and they all looked fantastic! I had to just force myself not to keep buying hats, because they weren’t cheap in that shop. Turns out: I am a hat person.
Sunday we drove out to Fredericksburg and spent the day wandering in and out of shops, eating and drinking, talking, and just enjoying being together. Oh, and I bought another hat. Because I am a hat person.
On the way home, we stopped at the Messina Hof winery to do a little wine tasting. I tasted one that was ranked the 4th best wine IN THE WORLD, called Primitivo. It was lush and soft and deep and complex and a gorgeous big red. So good. But by the time we got home it was late, and we were exhausted, and we had to get up at 5am to head to the airport, so we sat on my patio and ate some hummus and drank some wine and called it a night. The house is so quiet now, so empty without their warm, generous, loving presences. I love those people with all my heart.
So many things I’m left thinking about in the wake of their wonderful and too-short visit. One, I think I just don’t really know very much about myself at all. Or rather, the things I’ve been so certain (and wrong!) about for so long have shown me that I need to ratchet down all certainty levels about 70% of their current degree of certainty. We had a great conversation at a bierhaus about certainty and aging and I want to think more about it and then write about it. Two, it’s never ever too late to get your real family. Maybe you were just born to the wrong mother or something….but if you’re lucky, you can find them. And you’ll know it when you do, so you just grab them, hang on tight, and love them with all your heart. Three, Sherlock and Peggy both had SO many great ideas and recommendations and suggestions for my business, and some are just hilarious and perfect. I’ll say a little more about them later, after I implement them. I haven’t ever felt so excited about the possibilities I might create for myself, and for Katie who works with me. And four, loving people also means their concerns are yours, their pain is yours, their suffering is yours, and I want to send all the love and energy and care I can summon along to them because they should just have all good things in their life.
Happy Labor Day y’all. I hope your holiday weekend includes family in whatever form that may take, and good food, and smiles and laughter, and beautiful skies filled with beautiful clouds. Summer is waning (well, in Texas that’s just kind of theoretical) and the year is zooming past, and you need to grab today and eat it up.
