On Las Olas....

There they sat......
in the lovely restaurant....
the woman and her good friend.... for hours.....
celebrating her month-long birthday.....as all good "Leos" did....
It came naturally....expecting them to fuss over her....
She deserved it.... She pre-scheduled it.... She demanded it...
All that adulation...
All that cake....
They laughed ....
They negotiated in only that way that strong, smart women do....
Intellectual jousting.... with a slightly ironic spar & DEEP conjecture...
It was fun....
And then.....just like that......she broke down....sobbing....
And her friend listened and watched and looked her dead in the eye....
And she realized, with more than a modicum of incredulity,
that she was seeing the face of compassion....
perhaps for the first time in her life....
The eyes of her friend were SO INCREDIBLY CARING.....that it actually threw her....
WHY was a caring friend such a shock to her system ???
She would need to ponder....
Let's face it....She would need to PAINT....

Considering the Birthday...

Exactly one year had passed since the big move down south....
She had, in many regards, settled in....
Not 100%....  Perhaps NEVER would she arrive at a 100% comfort level anywhere....
(Portland maybe?)
Tahiti ?
Who knew....
In any regard, tomorrow was her birthday....
Not a major one.... But somehow, indeed, FINALLY, she felt like a grownup....
(For at least the moment...)
The career had BLOWN UP.... in AMAZING & UNEXPECTED ways....
ALL those years of work had culminated in more than a modicum of "Name Recognition"...
This, in and of itself, was an achievement worthy of at least a nod of approval in the ever present mirror of her meanderings...
Brendan had become a self-reliant, grown man....
Certainly the very thing that parents hope and pray for, but somehow CRUSHING nonetheless for the mom left with noone to hide behind...
There was a bond there... unbreakable... as it should be....
She had had her share of flings & rendezvous....
She'd had some real fun as well...
SOUTHERN FUN....
PARTIES GALORE...
Not as serious.... Not TAKEN as seriously....
There were IGUANAS... ewwwwwww
With big GOITER things hanging from the reptilian throats... DAMN.. the tropics....
There was a pool of the most PRONOUNCED, JCPENNEY BLUE.... HER POOL ...
She chuckled as she recalled the CHIC, DARK pools of the Hamptons....
She'd always scoffed at the pretentiousness of attempting to make a large, PURELY MAN-MADE, luxury item into a kind of "POSING FLUKE OF NATURE".... lol   Silly & Superficial ...
She'd made friends... lost friends....renewed friendships....been surprised & delighted at how cared for she was... after all...
And so....
She looked upward....
And with a tear in her eye, she smiled up at her parents, letting them know that she had, in fact, survived....
that she was made of the same, tough stock that they were....
that she had painted them a legacy...
done them proud....
And she thanked God....right then & there.... for another year under the blue skies of life....