We made plans, and during our week in Atlanta we managed a good mix of keeping busy and sitting around doing nothing.  Our fun-for-the-whole-family event was a screening of The Birds at the Fox Theatre, Atlanta’s historic movie palace (See Back When the Movies Were Big: Atlanta’s Fabulous Fox, March 2012).  Mama joined D and me at the High Museum for the current special exhibit centered on the famous Vermeer painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring.  D  humored me by showing  interest in my tales of the Museum as it was in the 80s when I worked there. While we lingered in the atrium before leaving, I could almost see my former boss heading toward the galleries with his characteristic bouncy step.  (See Remembering Gudmund Vigtel, November 2012).

For a few outings, D and I were on our own.  On these excursions, we drove the unlikely second car, an iridescent gold PT Cruiser that Daddy keeps at the ready for us.  Neither of my parents claims responsibility for choosing or buying this vehicle, but somehow, they own it.  I’m glad, because it has always made D smile.  During our annual tour of the shops of Virginia-Highland, we actually made a few purchases.  According to tradition, Mama and Daddy met us for lunch that day at George’s.

D and I spent our last Atlanta afternoon meandering through midtown with one of my dearest friends.  Tedd and I were in school and church together from second grade on.  We therefore have considerable common ground, and we catch up about once a year.  We started our wanderings on the grounds of Grady High, our alma mater, which has been expanded and beautifully refurbished in recent years.  Reading the bricks of the commemorative courtyard brought back long-submerged memories and inspired recollections of half-forgotten classmates now dispersed.  We crossed the street to Piedmont Park and envied the swimmers at the enormous new sparkling pool.  When did the city start looking so good, so clean and fresh?  We finished our tour at O’Keefe, our former middle school, now owned by Georgia Tech.  What was the name of that band that played at the eighth grade dance?  Was it really the Family Plan?  Tedd, with his easy, endearing sweetness and unique humor, brought D into our shared past in a way that I alone could not. She has come to appreciate Tedd just as I do, and she seemed to take real pleasure in our swapping of 70s-era stories.

At my parents’ house, our sitting around doing nothing was of high quality, as it should be on a vacation.  As in previous years, we passed contented hours on the screened porch.  Shaded by trees and edged by dense foliage, the porch is like a cage for humans in the midst of a wildlife preserve.  It’s a perfect spot to watch the exuberant acrobatics of squirrels, chipmunks, robins, wrens and brown thrashers.  In the evenings, we regularly heard a pair of local barred owls calling to one another.

 

We spent time simply being there with Nana and Papa, engaged in those free-wheeling conversations that seem trivial at the time, but in hindsight, just might be the lifeblood of family and community.  Neighbors dropped by, and D and I went visiting, as we always have. Both Sundays at church, I felt as though I were returning to a second home.  We were greeted warmly by caring friends, most of whom are watching D grow up from afar.

If, in my last post, my daughter sounded like an entitled, annoying teenager, during the visit she was rarely anything but gracious, patient and kind, to me, my parents, and to all our friends.  No one would have recognized her as one suffering the throes of high-tech gadget withdrawal.  Some nights, as I drifted off to sleep, I could hear D and her Nana talking and laughing in the TV room the way they have done for years. It’s a lovely, reassuring sound–the sound of my daughter and my mother, two like-minded night owls, good friends, happy and comfortable together.

Before we left for the airport, Daddy cut us some gardenias to carry with us.
They’re dried and brown now, but still fragrant.