FILM CAMERAS, FASHION & FUN
In the 4th grade my best friend moved to Hawaii. At the time, we were living in Jacksonville, Florida. Try telling a 9-year-old child being raised prior to the invention of the internet that a lightyear isn't an accurate measurement of distance between Hawaii and Florida.My moved-to-Hawaii friend and I sent hard copy hand written letters to each other. These letters they took forever. I'm talking FOREVER. One week to travel, another week to return. By the time I received her notes I had already sent two back.I hated losing my best friend, but I loved gaining a penpal. Something about the smell of a ballpoint pen drafting a blank sheet of paper, the taste of licking the envelope and the tongue paper cut that often came along with it. I so vividly remember stuffing the envelope full of pages because I had too much to say to the friend whom, I didn't know this then, I'd never see again.Sending and receiving mail to the infinity and beyond, was magic to a young girl.
In the same house in the same town my sister and I would fight to run through the living room up the flight of stairs and into Mom's room. What was all the fuss? Please, leave your guesses after the beep.The landline's answering machine.We were the coolest house in the roundabout. We had Caller ID, Call Waiting, and an Answering Machine. If I ever missed Kendall's call and she forgot to leave a message, I still knew!We were, for lack of a bunch of better words, ahead of our time.On one particular occasion, Maggie and I were both overly excited to get inside and check the machine. I jumped on my sister's back as she ran up the sunflower-stricken concrete path, and caused her to collapse. I remember looking up at the open wound being stitched together. The image reflected through the emergency room doctor's eyeglasses. My sister had been punished and I had been praised The sweet one, they all said. The poor little one that got hurt in the fall, not the accident. But hadn't I jumped on her back. Hadn't I been the cause of the concrete crash?My sister, the same sister who taught me how and why to write, couldn't meet my eyes for days. Picking at the stitches I begged her for forgiveness, "I'm sorry Maggie will you please forgive me?!"Mom would tell people I would surely become a doctor. I watched the entire surgery. My baby is made for medicine she'd say. Boy, was she wrong.