Amanda

Happy Birthday, Tomorrow M'dear Friend!!

Amanda came to work at the same salon that I worked at as a sales person the summer before she went away to University of Idaho. She was 18; I... was older. ;-) We always tell people that it was love at first sight. That we are soul-mates. The kind of friend you know you were destined to meet and somehow you knew them before you knew them. However, we did not actually become the type of friends who hang out, call regularly, and completely rely on, you know... BFF's, until much later. Initially, I talked to her at work or while I was doing her hair about life and all of her fun teenage/sorority/college experiences. We shared anecdotes and quips and thoughts about religion (We belonged to different religions and that always made the conversations interesting and full of passion. Luckily we were both respectful of on another understanding that God is not a respecter of persons.) and politics until before we knew it we were "BFF's".

The development of our friendship reminds me of the making of a bird nest. Several years ago I was walking down a street in Oswego, New York in late spring; trees lined the streets. On this particular day I was not in a hurry; I was just lolly gagging and taking time to smell the roses. ;-) I saw a bird nest that, apparently, fell out of the tree. The small nest was still intact, so I picked it up and carried it home. While I walked home I was studying the nest. I thought it was so interesting that a bird had built this intricate little home.
 Later that week, I was volunteering at the library and decided to look up how this process happened. I discovered that they find sticks, leaves, grass, string, and weave these items together with their beaks and feet. Then they find spider webs and other light vegetation and residual dirt which they spit on to make a glue. My mind began to draw all sorts of analogies from my experiences at the time to this process of providing a place of shelter and safety for a love one. And...again, as I thought of my friendship with Amanda my mind wandered to this day when I found a little treasure in nature. We built our friendship with the small things by sharing bits and pieces of our lives as we weaved these together we began to develop trust which became the spit or glue that built a nest of security. Our friendship became a place of refuge.

One of the things that drew me to Amanda was that I felt she was a lot like me. I saw myself in her choices and journey that she traveled from teenager to adult. We are both, I believe, innately good, but mischievous similarly. There is a line in a song by the Indigo Girls called "Closer to Fine" that I always think of when I am trying to describe the conundrum I feel in my soul, and that Amanda and I have talked about. They sing, "The darkness has a hunger that's insatiable and the lightness has a call that's hard to hear." The desire to follow our heart and intuition seems so much quieter then the mischievous flesh that calls us away from our authentic selves. I am delighted to have found a co-heart in my struggle; someone who understands and shares in my plight. Amanda taught me how to reconcile both attributes through communicating and reasoning in each situation. She taught me how to focus. I remember talking about this struggle especially during my prayers. She suggested that I write my prayers in a journal. I did this for three months and during those three months I felt my prayers were being answered. I had NOT felt that before or since.

Amanda taught me that age is arbitrary. We are several years apart and it does not matter. I think that I feel and seem so much younger to others because she does not treat me like I am any older then her. My favorite summer of all time was the summer of 2006. I loved it! It was the perfect storm. I worked only three days a week, it was the summer before my last year of college, and I was absolutely in love with a boy I was convinced I would marry (who would later shatter my heart). Early in the summer Amanda and I found a beach, which we called "noodle beach" because of the pool noodles that accompanied us each time, above Lucky Peak in Boise, Idaho. We would drive to our relatively hidden spot swim, lay out, and solve the worlds problems as well as our own. We talked about anything and everything from God, to science, to love, to sociology. We had a no agenda, agenda that allowed us to encounter each experience, however trite or frivolous, with maximum appreciation and absorption. I knew each day that I needed to savor every hour of that summer... and... Amanda helped me do just that.

Amanda, there are thousands of scenarios, zingers, esoteric jokes, and thought provoking ecclesiastical and sophical/secular moments that would show the world the enormity of my gratefulness for the fingerprints that line my soul because you are in my life, but what I want the world and you to know is that this earth would be a flat existence without Amanda Coonts. Thank you for being a woman who is a survivor, who is unique, and who takes the initiative to empower herself with knowledge.  

I echo my words from my introduction: "So often I hear women putting down other women; pointing out their faults and generally being negative. I keep wishing there was a way for many people to see what I have experienced with the women that I have had the opportunity to cross paths with. These women are kind, focused, generous, determined, loyal, beautiful, smart, sincere, and loving!" Amanda, thank you for being such a woman in my life. Thank you for NEVER putting me down, in fact for ALWAYS encouraging me to take care of myself, love myself, and be kind to myself. You did this by taking care of me, loving me and being kind to me. Thank you for embracing and finding entertainment in my contradictions like: sophisticated and crass; clever and silly; smart and flighty; ...and philosophical and absent minded. I am more comfortable in my contradictions because of you. I love you dear friend!