The Best Story

What started as a chill-and-grill birthday pool party at someone else’s house, ended as an impromptu girls’ wine night at mine.

This isn’t unusual.  I try to always keep wine and coffee stocked in the kitchen, pillows and candles ready for comfort and ambiance, fairy lights twinkling and strung out the back, with my furry, entertaining pets greeting each unplanned guest at the front.

My friends are always welcome. So when the party dwindled at my neighbor’s, the after-party sparked up at mine.

Rather than claiming a cushioned chair on my jungle-planted porch, the girls got cozy on the couch, so I lit the candles and popped open a bottle of red.

The language flitted between Spanish and English, while the topics peppered parenthood and relationships. More wine was poured, our chatter never quietening as our laughter lit up the room.

My home blooms with memories made from such spontaneous moments.

Every single item in my house, down from the small blue twin candle holders procured from my adventures in Bulgaria, to the dusty, time-tattered books bought in the Lanes in England, and the elephant art curated from a remote village in Thailand holds significance.  Very few things are shop purchases. Most are on-the-road buys that hold meaning.  Any furniture built, created, or claimed reflects friendships I still cherish.  Even the plants, growing half-wild on my porch all hold positive thoughts and memories for me.

Guitars and colorful paintings gifted by ex-boyfriends adorn the walls. Curious and charismatic furniture built by neighbors from Florida and roommates from Poland creates space to hold up statuettes, sea shells, and sunglasses.

Polished ceramic bowls with seemingly little importance to the untravelled eye take me back to a hiking trip through Cinque Terra in Italy.

A beautiful and pricy necklace reminds me of the girlfriend who encouraged me to buy it, despite the cost.  “Christy, treat yourself,” she’d pressed. “You’re a deserving woman, decorate yourself with beautiful things you love that make you feel good.”  So I did.

Now when I adorn my neck with this lovely piece, it lifts my spirits not just because the jewelry is gorgeous, but because it reminds me of my friend who nudged me into spending a little more money on myself in ways that made me feel good.

Two copies of the same novel are stacked on my bookshelf. They remind me of a time my former roommate picked up a copy for me at a second-hand store, not realizing I already had bought the same book.

He tragically passed away not too long after gifting me this book. To this day, I am not sure which copy is the one I had purchased, and which copy is the one he picked up for me thinking I’d like to have it.  It’s a terrible book, it turns out, with shallow characters and a forgetful plot.

But I keep both copies on my shelf anyway because they remind me of him and his thoughtfulness.

I could go on, regaling stories about the things in my house, but I’ll stop to bring us back to the night of frivolity enjoyed by the wine-drinking girls on my couch.

Noticing my overflowing bookshelf, one girlfriend stood up and scanned the titles on my shelf, and said with authority, “Let me tell you something about these books.”

“These books all have a story,” I shouted, cutting her off, “not just the story in the pages, but the story of how I got the book, who I was with, where I was traveling.”  Some of these books were so important to me, they had been carried from the UK to Australia, collected in Cambodia, journeyed to South Africa, and finally rested here with me in Nicaragua.  I love them that much.

Wine-fueled, I carried on to point out the wooden hummingbird from Costa Rica perched on the top of a dusty stack.  Atop the books were the few framed photos displayed in my house, amongst my other treasures.

Alright, my friend responded, forgetting whatever it was she had stood up to declare about my books.  She announced that she would close her eyes and let her hand drift over the spines.  Wherever her hand landed, I would then have to tell her the story of that particular book, how it had survived every book I’ve had to cull over the years, and why it won its place on my bookshelf in Nicaragua.

The girls behind us on the couch continued the cacophonous chatter, while my friend stood face to face with my bookshelf and closed her eyes.

I told her she didn’t need to close her eyes. She was free to judge a book by its cover, to hear what story I would unravel for her.

She closed her eyes anyway, and let her fingers drift.

After a few moments, her hand landed. But not on a book.

She had landed on an old, framed photo of my brother, sister, and me.   

“Well”, my friend observed, “it’s not a book that you need to tell the story of, but this photo.”

In the photo, I am wearing what once was my favorite jacket, a dark chocolate corduroy that’s now long gone. My brother, a black cap sitting backward on his head, and my sister in thick, dark braids, and the only one barely, but successfully, making eye contact with the lens.

We are all cracking up at some hilarious unremembered moment. It seems we had attempted to pose, my brother with an arm around each of his sisters. We are deep in hysterics, laughing wholeheartedly the way only siblings can.  Who knows at what – some ridiculous, likely unfunny joke no one else would get, but laughing with a fullness that brings a smile to my face all these years later.

The giggling coming from my lovely wine-infused friends piled on my couch was laughter that bubbled from a different category.

We picked up the picture. I’m not sure when it was taken, but it’s likely between 2005 and 2008. Nearly 20 years ago.

This photo has always made me feel happy, and connected to my siblings despite the distance in years and lifestyles.

What has life delivered since this photo was snapped?  Marriages, kids, break ups, health scares, big moves, business fails, business wins, kids becoming teenagers, new cars, new homes.

We had no idea, back then, where the winding road we were each motoring down would take us.  Who we would meet, and how we would change. Rolling through each day as time paved our lives out. Laughing still, but also enduring the less-funny events that are an inescapable part of life.

In this photo, we were caught in the moment of the purest hilarity, hanging out with each other outside of any obligatory holiday, which was rare even when we were all in the same-ish location.

And I still laugh. I don’t laugh at whatever the 20 and 30-something version of ourselves was laughing at when the camera clicked over.  I laugh at how we laughed then, and I’m grateful that I can easily cast my eyes on this photo any time and feel connected with these two.

When I look at the photo, perched amongst my stories, what I feel is love.  What I feel is gratitude that the three of us can still laugh in this way when we are together.

Of all the stories my friend’s hand could have landed on, the candid photo of my siblings and me told a story too.  A story of us three completely losing our composure and laughing so openly, before our cares and worries could stack up too high against us. Before our adult lives came for us, and thrust us into more serious, unlaughable moments.

It frames connection and reunion, family, and joy.  It portrays sibling love and the unstoppable giggles we’d surrendered to. Even if we forget why, we don’t forget how we felt back then.

Turns out, this photo amongst all the books on my shelf holds the best story of them all.

~ Christy

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