Gina and Gratitude

I have to feature her gratitude list and I hope that this does not offend or embarrass her. The thing is, I miss this friend. She has moved away to earn an MFA, even though she is an exceptional writer already. She is caught up in the cyclone called grad-school, and is unable to post to her blog as much these days. I still check it about 400 times, while rocking back in forth in the corner like a crack addict.
Anyway, thank you Gina (and to everyone else) who comments. When Snickollet comments, I do back flips because I feel like I was just contacted by a celebrity. I mean really, do you see how many people comment on her blog? I guess that is the result of being amazing.

So, Gina's List (I will respond in bold):

1. My husband: To paraphrase the title of a Lee Abbott book - Everything to me. All at once. Strength. Intelligence. Wit. Love.
Yeah, at your wedding there was this vibrational connection between the two of you. I tried to escape it by drinking a gallon of the sangria you prepared for the celebration. I couldn't. I left feeling very, very happy for you.

2. My dream: Running after the writing dream is a difficult thing. I am challenged from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep again. I get frustrated. I cry over teaching. I cry because I'm lonely for my husband. I learn of a college roommate, younger than I and already pregnant and I feel the incessant pulse of my ovaries. Sometimes I second guess these sacrifices and tell people that it might not be worth it. Sometimes I have delusions of grandeur. Sometimes I can't get out of bed. I have learned to struggle against struggle and simultaneously embrace it.
Oh, dear girl. I still think of the short story you let me read 6 years ago. I still think of the way the main character felt the cold stone through her jeans as she sad outside on a step. That makes you one impressionable writer. You struggle and second guess and sacrifice because you ARE a writer. When you embrace it all, art emerges.

3. My Cleveland home: I long for it. I have memory cycles about it. I imagine the driveway and the lawn and then I imagine the side door, the stairs up to the kitchen, the living room with newspapers and magazines everywhere, the stairs, the cats perched on the first landing, the bedroom that still looks new to me, the attic where I wrote the best literature analysis I've ever written. My Columbus apartment is all right. It's not my Cleveland home.
You know, that driveway of yours is STEEP. I do envy the haphazardly full bookshelves that line your living room. That room was made for you.

4. My imagination: I don't know what I would be doing without my daydreams and wild imaginings and the thought, "Whoa, better get that down on paper." Emotional rearrangement comes with wild imagination but it's worth it to feel so keenly. I write this now because I haven't spent the day crying over various things.
Sometimes I wonder if I have ever not been in a daydream. I make up stories constantly...about the man in Starbucks, the woman at the bus stop, the forlorn face of a friend. There is no reality for me. Thank God.

5. My breasts: I'm acknowledging physical body instead of lofty pursuit and challenge. My breasts are my best physical feature. Husband says that my eyes are but I've been inspecting longer than he has.
Me too! Me too! It has taken me 30 years to realize that I have something that every woman wants, no matter how many years I have spent hating them. I have never really been looked in the face by any man, though. Husband included.

Thanks, Gina. Like I said, I miss having you in the Cleveland area and hope you are writing the hell out of something.