After dinner in St. Armand’s Circle, we walked to the beach and caught this purple cloud sky after sundown. I walked for two solid hours on the beach this morning and have no pictures to show for it because it’s impossible to take pictures and talk to a dear friend at the same time. Tonya, a friend for three decades, the kind of friend you cannot call with less than free half hour to catch up. I called her at 8 a.m. as I was starting out, and we didn’t hang up until two hours later, back at my door. It was a long, rambling and meandering, overdue talk, our first since early November when we spent a day talking and walking and shopping in Tampa. She is my longest lingering best Tampa Bay friend and even though right now she’s only an hour away, this was our chance to connect. A deep dive into sharing about our mothering, as I walked by the sea. We are at different stages: mine all adults, hers still in middle and high school. She has seen me mother my children through the stages she’s living through now. By the time we hang up, we have cycled through so many emotions and challenges, and here is a friend with whom I’ve shared many of my deepest secrets and I know hers. We met in our psychodrama training in Tampa, 1988? ‘89? And when I moved back to Boston in ‘94, strangely enough, it was the period of time when our friendship, long distance, instead of weakening, grew even deeper. After sunset, Frank and I went to a concert in Sarasota at Fogartyville, a folk venue run by a community radio station, and heard a rousing, raucous duo, Dirty Cello, to close our lovely day. This isn’t a clip from tonight, but they did play “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
