Post Script to Jasmine Trees in August

Tuesday night I dreamt that I was having a little party at my house. There was music playing, and my lovely neighbors were over, and there was a large table loaded with platters of food. We had all of the windows and doors opened, and the party was spilling out onto the yard and the porch, I could smell meat cooking and wood smoke. I was happy. I looked around at all my friends, all of these wonderful people who I did not know until I moved to Portland, and just in the last few years we had entered each others' lives. We were all laughing and talking, glasses in hand, smiles and friendly faces, like a classic Woody Allen film. Here I was, in the midst of a party in which I felt completely at home, relaxed, blessed with such good people around me, genuinely enjoying myself and reflecting that I loved my life here.

The doorbell rang. Which was odd, because everyone was just walking in casually, calling hello and coming into the center of the house with bottles of wine and dishes to pass. Who would stand on ceremony and ring the bell, staying outside?

I walked through the groups of friends chatting and eating, picking my way from the back to the front of the house and into the vestibule. The wooden door was open, but the screen door was not. Standing there on the porch with a timid smile and sparkling eyes, a mohair shawl around her statuesque shoulders, was my sister-friend, looking very much as she did 20 years ago, rounder, warmer, and with beaded cornrows in her thick chesnut hair. We hugged for what seemed like hours, standing there in the doorway, and it just felt so healing to my heart, that she was back in my life. The way she was before, during those early years we were so fierce and loyal, to the death and beyond, always seeing the grace and the beauty. In my ear she said, "Are you glad that I came?" and I just let the tears roll down onto her shoulder and held her tighter.