One of my favorite memories was just brought back to the forefront of my mind by this photo (from kinfolk magazine). Elise and Jeff were my first friends to get married. Elise, my friend from birth (before, if you ask our moms), walked down the aisle at twenty-one. How they transitioned from single adults into the wedded world still sets the bar for me. By the time I take my turn, most of my friends will be married (most of them already are), and the transition will be different, but nonetheless, I'll never forsake the lessons I've learned from watching them, and especially by being loved by them.

The week after they'd returned from their honeymoon, they'd already invited a few of us, their closest single friends over. Their new apartment was clean and beautiful. I still remember so clearly Elise's beeming face as she opened the bathroom cabinets and showed us all her neat organization. Perhaps I remember because I have far too many pictures, and one is of that smile, at that moment. It was the neighborhood kids, Robert, Tyson, myself, Elise, and now Jeff. And since the past several years had been spent together, studying and cooking, tanning at O.O.Denny and cooking (BBQing), watching Animal Planet Shark Week and cooking, watching Bill Cosby and cooking, laughing and cooking.... you get the point, cooking. We like to eat, and even more, we like to prep and play with food together. Jeff and Elise pulled out all their new beautiful wedding toys (and they STILL set the bar for amazing and cool kitchen do-dads), and we went to work. I don't really remember what we ate that time, but what I do remember is that it was a Sunday afternoon, and we ate it on a blanket in the middle of their empty living room floor. They didn't have a couch, or a table or chairs yet, but they wanted to bring their friends into the very moment they were in, and that beautiful memory will always move me and hold me like few others.

Elise and Jeff are the masters at this. While they're planners and dreamers, I feel like they live in the moment, and bring others into that moment with them better than anyone else I know. They never let what they don't have stop them from enjoying what they do. I love it, and I love them. And with that, I especially love that memory. Just goes to show that it's not what you have that matters, it really is most importantly about who you are, and also, who you are with. :)

I think 20 years down the road, I want to have another picnic, on blankets, in the middle of a living room, just to remind myself, it's not about what you have. And I know if one person would do it with me, it would be Lou Lou.

I think I'd like to make a label for life that reads,
"Not Required: fancy long wooden tables, rod iron chairs, pottery barn flatware, leather couches, perfect children, fancy juicers, massive paychecks, exotic getaways, PhDs, etc." Don't get me wrong, I just rambled out mostly my own personal day dreams, but more and more I think, that's really not required and life is here, on a blanket in an empty livingroom, beside childhood best friends, new friends, new husbands, baby girls, and paper napkins.