Gratitude Monday: Tending the garden of friendship

A lot of my Gratitude Mondays are focused on my friends. That’s partly because I sometimes scuff my feet, pout and whine that, with a life as boring as mine, it’s hard—hard, I tell you—to find things to be grateful for. Sniff. But it’s mostly because I have the best friends in the world.

On a de-cluttering spree at the weekend, I came across a photo my friend Chris took of me just before I headed out for a fundraiser in DC, for the Phillips Collection’s 75^th Anniversary, at the French embassy. The picture is a Polaroid (this was 1996, okay?), and I’m wearing a multi-colored silk number and standing next to my 1984 Toyota, with my brick-like mobile phone to my ear, trying to look like I go to the French embassy every other week.

(No, I’m not putting the photo up. Just use your imagination.)

The thing is, Chris came over to my house specifically to give me a big send-off and record my getup for posterity. She’s like that—always there to support, to encourage and to expand the experience.

Chris taught me one of the most important lessons of my life—one I’m still learning: I don’t have to do everything all by myself. There are people around me who will help; who want to help; and who know a whole lot more than I do. I’ll give you three examples of this with Chris.

She is a wonderful gardener. She was always bringing in gorgeous flowers from her garden to set in vases on the counter by her cube. You wanted to drift down there to see what she had—even after she went to work for one of the more unpleasant VPs around.

When I decided to stop being the white trash neighbor in my Reston cluster, and replace the little patch of lawn in my front yard (which I mowed maybe twice a year and therefore looked like it was concealing clapped-out washing machines) with an actual garden, Chris helped me make it happen. She showed me how to kill the miserable grass with black webbing over it; then brought her rototiller in from Prince William County to break up the ground. She advised me on suitable plants, amending the soil and garden design. We made a glorious trip to Betty’s Azalea Ranch to pick out camellias, azaleas, hostas and periwinkle; and we shared an order at Holland Farm for masses of bulbs. (I went wild with irises, tulips and daffodils; and discovered the relationship between planting 50 bulbs in a day and knackered back/shoulder muscles.)

When my garden was on its way, Chris appeared at my door with an espaliered camellia to plant in front of my porch.

One Sunday morning I was hauling ass to get to choir practice, and I tore out my front door to find Chris and her husband forking a pickup-load of mulch over my garden. I stopped dead and thought, “Oh, I shouldn’t let them do this, I should be doing it; I should at least be helping.” Then I realized—it’s a gift, you idiot; Chris is giving you a gift.

And she was.

Although a native Californian, Chris moves to, ah, Mediterranean time. Everyone who knows her accepts this as part of the package; we adjust. And--what the hell, who says that just because I have an obsession with getting some place eight minutes before the appointment, that’s the only way to do things? It’s always worth the wait when she gets there.

(When the unpleasant VP decreed that everyone in the marketing department had to be at their desks with bright shiny faces no later than 0830 each morning, Chris moaned, “Oh, [Bas Bleu]—I’m dead meat. I’m dead meat.” Fortunately, her old boss moved to a spin-off company and she went back to work with him.)

That choir I mentioned? We put on a concert of Haydn’s The Creation. Baroque orchestra, professional soloists, the whole megillah. Chris drove all the way in from PW County to attend. She appeared some time after the Genesis, but I was so happy to see her there. It’s the only time someone I know has paid money for a performance I was part of.

(BTW—I’ll give you this for nothing: if you’re going to spend nearly two hours standing up and sitting down on a folding metal chair, don’t wear a leather skirt. We had to wear black skirt/trousers and white shirt, And I had this black leather skirt I was rather fond of and didn’t get a chance to wear very often. It turns out that…well, never mind. But it’s not a good idea.)

And, finally, back to the photo of me on my way to the French embassy. When I decided I was going to go to the (black tie) fundraiser, I convened a group of (female) colleagues for a lunchtime try-on and vote session, because I didn’t know what to wear. I mean—I’m from LA and had worked in Hollywood; my idea of dress-up didn’t quite synch with DC style. Chris really wanted me to wear the, ah, form-fitting black number; but—while I could indeed get into it—I wasn’t entirely comfortable in it. When I said I didn’t think I’d be able to get the zipper in the back up, she volunteered to come over to my place and do it for me. (She didn’t have any suggestions for how I’d get it down at the end of the evening.)

In the end, due to circumstances beyond my posse's control, I wore the backup choice, the multicolored silk jobber with handkerchief hems. And Chris was the one to come over to admire the finished product and send me off with a vote of confidence on the night.

And she took the photo.

Finding that picture this weekend was a gift, a surprising, wonderful gift. It reminded me of friendship, my friends and Chris. It also reminded me of that lesson. 

Thanks, Chris—I’m still on the learning curve.