By LIZ MARCHI
Legends of Our Own Minds: From Left: Liz Marchi (Diane Keaton), Amy Wynn Lancaster-Brown (Sandy Duncan), Nancy Edwards Eldridge (Grace Kelley), Dana Steers Row (Sandra Bullock), Laurie Jones (Emmylou Harris), Michele Abney Glance (Audrey Hepburn).
My 41st High School Mini Reunion at the BEACH, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.
I began blogging to consider the last quarter of life: 60 to whenever. I just spent 3 days at the beach with 5 high school girlfriends, some I have known since 1st grade.
Geez, is it really all about childhood? I don’t know but it certainly matters. I do know that our time together, after 40 years, was easy, fun and meaningful.
We could sleep together, lay around in our PJ’s, forget to wear makeup and just be content with good wine and stories. I needed this.
My amazing parents (we all had amazing parents: teachers, pilots, architects, artists, entrepreneurs and engineers, all drawn to a college town to learn, teach and better their station in life. We grew up in a world where education was foundational) are on the goal line stand, remember, we are talking about the SOUTH, the SEC.
What strength I garnered from Mimi (Audrey) about her father, an accomplished artist, in a facility where they give him coloring books and crayons. Or from Nancy (Grace) who lost her Dad at 52. I loved her Mom, a WAC in WW II who ferried bombers from the factory. Wynn, (Sandy), has adopted and raised two children plus her own.
It was 72 hours of being home again.
Look out; this crowd is coming to Montana next year. How amazing to retrace foot prints in the sand from so many, many tides ago. We wondered why we didn’t fight harder for women’s sports or why we slept in orange juice cans on our heads to make our hair straight.
Loved revisiting how we dried our LONG hair before hand held blow dryers. But the best part of all was being together as women. Sharing our stories of generations and how we dealt with and are dealing with life’s inevitable changes.
The South is so about families. Children: they bind us to the past and to the future. I am so grateful to have had this time in between with the last girls. We have all grown up.
Liz Marchi
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Liz Marchi lives on a ranch in Polson, Montana with her husband Jon. She is the Fund Coordinator for the Frontier Angel Fund and spends a lot of time thinking and learning about entrepreneurs, the economy and Montana’s unique place in the world. She has three daughters and a stepson and daughter and a grandchild. She graduated from Hollins College and is entering the final quarter of life…unless we go into overtime.