This past spring, writer Jody Bower created a testament to the close circle of friends she has shared her adult life with. In writing about them, for them and for herself, she evokes a kind of organism made of lives that look distinct but are of one piece, like a stand of Aspens. There are leaves of families and lovers, careers and hobbies, talents and achievements, joys and sorrow. The style and strategy that Jody created for this love letter to her group of women friends is one I admire and one I find inspiring. I’ve read it over and over:

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Spring Fling
by Jody Bower

Thirty years now we’ve been getting together for Spring Fling. It began when we were poor students unable to afford much beyond the necessities. At first we would go out for dinner at a nice restaurant and then on to the ballet, perhaps, or the symphony. As our fortunes improved over time, Spring Fling grew to a night away in a cabin, then two nights, and now three nights. We rent a vacation home at some tourist destination, usually on the water and with a hot tub, and leave the partners and spouses at home. We talk, eat, take long walks, talk, eat, read, talk, and eat some more. In the last few years there has been a shrine to chocolate where offerings are placed to be shared. When the last children are grown and gone, we say we will go on a cruise or rent a villa in Italy.

Most of us have shared housing at different times and in different combinations, mostly during college and graduate school. It’s said the strongest bonds are between those who have been under fire together. One year was particularly hard for many of us. People we loved died or stopped loving us – or kept loving us when we no longer loved them. One boyfriend’s incipient schizophrenia emerged. Parents were not always accepting of increasing independence and let us know in tearful, angry phone calls. Several of us were evicted from two rental houses in a row because both landlords went bankrupt. The furnace broke in the middle of the worst cold spell on record. Through it all we had to keep with our studies.
That year, Spring Fling wasn’t just a fun evening out — it was shore leave, a time away from the battle, a necessary and healing respite. Some years there were as many as twelve women on Spring Fling, but for the last decade it’s been the same seven women. Three of us are Japanese-American, the rest various flavors of Caucasian. Some consider themselves bisexual. Five have married, two have divorced, one has remarried. Another has lived for over 20 years with the same man but sees no reason to marry him. One spent years trying to overcome infertility. Between us we have borne two girls, adopted two mixed-race boys, and acquired a stepdaughter and two stepsons. Some are great-aunts, but no one is a grandmother – yet. We speak of loved pets as we do our children.

We all think we are independent thinkers. One describes herself as conservative, the rest as liberals. One – not the conservative – is a Christian, one is a lapsed Catholic, most are spiritual in some way, and the woman who won’t marry refuses to commit to a dogma either. Three make quilts, one embroiders, one does fancy stamp work. Almost everyone knits. We do volunteer work and give to charities. We are all avid gardeners.

Three of us have lost siblings. One lost both parents a year apart to the same form of cancer. One has moved her parents into assisted living near her and two more are trying to convince their parents it’s time to leave the family home. One of us has glaucoma. Another may be developing macular degeneration. Two have had hysterectomies. Only one has yet to deal with menopause. We are beginning to talk about retirement. We say that when we’ve outlived everyone else, we will all live together in a large house with Pablo the pool boy.

The structural engineer is known for her non sequiturs and her ability, when inebriated, to imitate famous actresses. Her Katharine Hepburn is in much demand. She is 4’11” and hates being called “cute.” She can eat an astonishing amount of food without gaining weight. Her most famous quote is “this is a beautiful place. Let’s eat something here so we’ll remember it.”

The physical therapist who works with adults is the most beautiful woman we know. We take her shopping and make her buy clothes that none of the rest of us could get away with wearing. She indulges us in this vicarious pleasure, but takes them back the next day. She is not interested in her own beauty. What she likes is intense discussions about why people are the way they are.

Our high-powered political consultant was once a sous-chef at a famous restaurant. She can taste any dish and tell you what is in it and how to cook it. She cooks to relax. She likes good wine. When she’s had a couple of glasses, she starts to tease others in a high, silly voice. Her home and garden are works of art.

Our other physical therapist works with babies born with disabilities. She takes her vacations on skis or a bike. She has biked the route of the Tour de France. She is trained in classic hula, a discipline as spiritual and formal as any martial art. At her wedding she kicked off her shoes and surprised her new husband with a hula just for him. The attendees watched in rapt silence. When she finished, one man breathed “now that’s raised the bar for weddings!”

Our professor of communications comes prepared with thought-provoking questions for the group. She loves long disquisitions on any subject, especially sex and religion. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in the South Pacific after college and didn’t get her PhD until she was 40. She is still adjusting to the idea that she now earns money.

The book-keeper tends to sit back and listen while the rest of us talk. She has an enviable giggle. In our shared houses during college, she was the alpha female who expected us all do our chores in time. She exerts the same calm control over children and animals. It took me 20 years to question why she wouldn’t let us eat popcorn until the movie started – and why we all obeyed. When I asked her about this, she just laughed.

Then there is me, the rolling stone, the singer, the writer. My life has been more chaotic: I’ve lived in more places, had more lovers, done more dangerous things, needed more therapy, walked a little closer to the edge than most of the group. (Writers seek experiences.) The Spring Flingettes keep me grounded and sane. They have rescued me, listened to me, and most important of all, laughed at me to let me know they love me warts and all. They are my family of choice, my true sisters, the home I’ve gone back to for the last 30 years.

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Although many of us yearn for membership in a group that has sustained itself as long as Jody’s group of women friends has, with a little digging, we can find one we count on.

Think about groups to which you have belonged for many years: your marriage, siblings, neighborhood, sports team, book group, quilting group, band, work team, church, synagogue, mosque or zendo?

If you’d like, you can invent a persona to do the speaking. Here are two ideas for doing that: imagine one of your pets holding forth about the group he or she belongs to or have one of your pieces of writing talking about the group it belongs to.

When you have decided on a group that your essay’s speaker belongs to, re-read Jody’s essay. Observe the way she walks her audience through the history of her group and takes time to celebrate and honor each member individually even as she sees the whole. Think about the others in the group you (or the persona you have adopted as the speaker) belong to. Think about how all of you came together to be a group, this “organism” of which you are part.

Begin a piece of writing by listing what occurs to you when you start to think of yourself and the others as a “we” and an “us,” and the actions and circumstances of yourself with these others as belonging to all of you, “ours.” Keep these lists going by using the word “one” or “the one who” as Jody does.

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When I sat down to try the exercise, I had just completed making travel arrangements for the month of teaching I do every year in Tucson. The group I began talking about was a small one–my mother, her dog, and me–but the strategy Jody introduced to me helped me begin to write about an experience I have not yet tackled.

Here is my start that lists the images that came to me from what we do when we travel to Tucson. I look forward to continuing writing and to redrafting as it develops:

February Escape
by Sheila Bender

Five years now, we have been visiting Tucson together. A year after my father died, my mother was less occupied with putting things in order and more occupied with staying cheerful. We started cooking up ideas about having her join me on my annual teaching trip to the Southwest, a way to put winter behind us. Two years, we stayed in the Windmill Hotel because it had restaurants just doors away, convenient for my mother while I was teaching. One year, we bought an apricot toy poodle puppy, eight weeks old, two pounds. The puppy attached to my mother, who smiled from so many kisses, from being greeted so gaily, from knowing her home wouldn’t be silent anymore when she returned.

For three years now, the dog has returned to her birth state with us, in larger carriers each time but still fitting under the seat. Because the Windmill was booked up, we went to an adobe-style Comfort Suites built around a courtyard where the puppy sniffed and peed. The next year, she stayed with us in a home in a community by the Catalina Mountains, where relatives arrived in shifts over the month to honor my mother on her 80th birthday.

Every January, we take the dog for her exam; we make sure she is up-to-date on her shots, and we get the health certificate airlines demand. We give her drops to prevent heartworm. We worry about valley fever. We smile remembering the way she spends February nights visiting both beds.

In Tucson, we eat at restaurants with patios so we can take my mother’s dog; we sit by the pools. Friends and my students escort us to small towns almost in Mexico. We buy spices and colorful jackets. We go to the International Gem Show, find strands of coral and pearls. On the 20th of February, we toast my father on his birthday, drink Lemon Drops, my mother’s favorite cocktail. We talk about my parents’ years together, their travels and parties. One of us talks about the way he never really wanted to retire, to stop working, even after his diagnosis. One of us talks about how he loved to inform his daughters–when a neighbor in our new post-World War II housing complex was pregnant, it was about how babies were made; when I left for college it was about managing money. One feeds the dog table scraps and one asks when she got so spoiled. The dog jumps into my mother’s lap and licks crumbs off the finished plate.

In February, we stay in the city, but we drive away from it, too, into ranch land, over cattle grates and dirt roads….

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In this unfinished part of the draft, I may or may not leave this initial opening strategy behind as I concentrate on new terrain–both physically and emotionally. What is important to me, is that using the strategy Jody used, I have found my topic and am ready to explore.

After you think of a group you belong to that you would like to write about, think about the occasion or setting that brought and keeps that group together. Then think of events and circumstances. You may see your writing take on a direction you hadn’t anticipated as you rely on the images from the events you are listing.
Go on for as long as your observations and memory and the details they deliver continue to enrich your writing.

And again, send in the results of this exercise and I will make a future article from them!