Posted by Elizabeth

I stand at the arrivals gate, part of a pulsing mob waiting for the same thing:  the first glimpse at a blond head bobbing through the crowd, a peek at an orange shirt, a broad smile of recognition.  My best friend, Heidi, has flown in from Las Vegas just to throw me a baby shower.  We spend Friday madly dashing around, taking care of last-minute details.  I arrange to have our feet perfectly manicured for the big day.  I drive us to the old-fashioned candy store where I choose Holland mints in pale shades of spring, stuffed into wicker booties that my mother-in-law sent from Mexico.  Have you called the tearoom to give them the final head count? I call to her through the bathroom door.  Try as I may, I can’t help but micromanage the details of a party for which I am the guest of honor.

When Saturday afternoon rolls around, I tick the items off my to-do list and pack the car with pretty packages as Heidi irons out the wrinkles of her salmon blouse and runs from room to room with a hair clip in her hand.  One moment I see her furtively scribbling at a card, the next she is wondering where her camera went.  Are you ready? I yell to her from the garage.  Almost!, she shouts.  If humans had calls, these would be ours.

At the tearoom, we are a flurry of hugs and hellos.  In between introductions I catch Heidi’s eye.  Can we get into the room early to place the favors on the table?  It looks like we’re missing someone.  Where’s the herbal tea? Once seated, she wrestles the camera out of my hand and the gifts I am balancing on my lap and insists that I do nothing for the next two hours.  Soon I fall into a steady rhythm of simple pleasure, munching on treats, chatting with friends, tearing into wrapping paper.  Before I know it the chimes tinkle gently, letting us know in the most civil way possible that our time is up and a spell is about to be broken.

After a leisurely breakfast the next day, crammed with deep conversation, Heidi gets ready to fly home.  Minutes before we need to leave for the airport she is slowly, carefully penning a list of the gifts I received for the baby’s book on beautiful blue paper. I flutter nervously around her, asking her what snack she’d like for the plane, if she’s remembered to pack everything, if she’d like a copy of a recipe.  Without answering, she continues her meticulous writing, her focus laser sharp.  I finally cram a triangle of homemade blueberry pie into a Tupperware container, calling Are you ready?, from the kitchen.  Almost.

Racing to the airport, less than an hour before her departure time, Heidi says to me, “I never worry when I’m around you, because I know you’re doing enough worrying for the both of us.”  While I dash around this world with pen clutched firmly in palm, Heidi is flowing through life with an eraser.  Whenever I am in her presence, she reminds me to let go, to have fun, to live my life in pencil.  She reminds me that a perfect sheet of paper that will live forever in a memory book is more important than being a few minutes early to the airport.  She is my ultimate counter-weight, the one who helps me craft my world through moments, not lists and details.  She reminds me of how far I have yet to go on this journey.

Who’s your “counter-weight?”  Whose simple presence reminds you to live your life “in pencil?”  Do you have a hard time letting go of the details of life?