I got a letter in the mail today from Lisa.
Lisa appeared in my life when I was 15, wandered right on in, all wild curly hair moccasins the faint scent of patchouli patchy jeans little girl giggles and calligraphy-penned notes passed through boring classes.
Lisa knew how to find beautiful lace slips and paisley-printed vintage tunics, ancient beautiful wedding dresses and pocket watches, even in the most picked-over of thrift shops. She knew how to scent her letters without getting grease stains, knew how to make moonshinish strawberry wine in secret, squirreled away in parents' attics.
We were, in many ways, the most embarrassing white-girl cliches. But I loved Lisa so hard. Her and the girl I fell in the sort of deep love reserved for in-the-closet-highschool-girls, would always joke that they were stripping me of my innocence. But to me it felt more like they were carefully undressing me, exposing me to the sunlight in ways my pale skin hadn't yet felt.
I can't remember the last time I saw Lisa, with her untamable thatch of hair that made her, with her long slender body, look like a dandelion in the breeze. But hearing from her like this, as she writes to me from across the country - still the same Lisa running with horses and tending farms and feeding the birds and bedding brown-eyed musicians - makes me feel more glad of her existence than ever before.
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