There is a distinct advantage to living in a small town or small city over life in a large one, namely, the ability to actually socialize with your friends on a regular basis. Sure, there's always email and telephone, but most writers are also naturally reclusive and really good at hiding, especially if they have a full time job and/or go to school, as I do. We horde our free time jealously, not because we don't love our friends, but because our free time is also our time to write, and for most of us, there just isn't very much of it.
      Sierra Vista gave me something I never had anywhere else: friends who actually lived close enough so that I could be a friend in person as well as just in theory. Nothing here is more than twenty minutes away from anything else, and as anyone who has sat in Chicago or Phoenix traffic for an hour and forty minutes (one way) understands, going to someone's house for a party or meeting for lunch can be like scaling a mountain. Ditto for public transportation-- transferring buses, riding commuter trains, and heaven help you in bad weather. Here in this small city of about 40,000 people, for the first time in my life I actually had a group of girlfriends within reach-out-and-tangibly-touch-me range. This meant we could easily have lunch during the work week, or go to a movie-- just that-- on the weekend, or meet for dinner on a weeknight. Then everyone could go on about their business-- writing, school, kids, other plans, whatever. We could have a bite to eat and then head home to do whatever we needed to get done that evening. We could meet up and do a little shopping, then ditto-- back home. If someone needed help with a project or was having an impromptu cookout, it was easy to just buzz on over for an hour or two. We helped with garage sales, went to town art fairs, helped move, cooked and were cooked for. When we had the house before this one and Toni had her previous house, we were six blocks from each other; not long after we became friends I threw gold-colored dog goggles on Lily and walked her over to Toni's house just for fun. Toni answered the door with the phone in one ear, looked down at the dog, and said in that great Virginia drawl, "Oh, my Lawd!"
      But what Sierra Vista gave, it also took away. This is a military town, and almost everyone here with whom I come in contact is military-oriented. Because of that, I said goodbye to the last of those friends, Toni, today. She stopped by and gave back a sweater and mumu (yes, I said mumu) I'd loaned her and forgotten about, and she's headed off to Virginia while her husband goes to Iraq. Another friend, Jeannette, left for the east coast in mid-October, while Rochelle and her husband moved to, of all places, the Chicago area in May. Shira and her family also headed east in June. These were all friends from work and my cherished group has now been scattered around the U.S. I would have never thought that at my age I would cry in saying goodbye to a friend, but today is a repeat of May, and I did it both times. I guess you have to experience the downs to truly appreciate the ups in life, and it doesn't help that today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday. It's hard to believe that Mom's already been gone a little over six months.
      Anyway, here's hoping I get these links right to post these two pix that were taken right before Toni and Jared drive away.



Toni and Me



Toni with Lily and The Goblin