Anne

When I was a child I was obsessed with my first best friend Anne.* She was a few years younger than me and the daughter of one of my mother’s best friends.

When I was about five we moved far away from my Eastern Oregon birth town of La Grande and sadly far away from my dear friend Anne. In my new home of Tacoma I thought about her all of the time and wrote to her in my diary almost every night.

Anne was without a doubt one of the funniest kids one is likely to encounter (the other being my little brother’s best friend Will*). Like me, from an early age Anne was encouraged to expand and explore her imagination. She loved fantasy, My Little Ponies, fairies, and doll house miniatures as much as I did.

When we saw each other over the holidays our time was spent creating elaborate stories of exiled princesses and wicked queens acted out by myriad candy-colored equine figurines. My grandmother’s antique dressers were transformed into palaces and cliff sides.

I adored Anne’s upstairs bedroom with its dollhouse and Little Women quilt, and Minkie (a much beloved soft mink pelt) ever curled upon a new drawing upon her bedside table. I would give anything to be able to eavesdrop on our dramatic story-play. Ours were always noble stories, quite unlike the strange and bawdy Barbie-play that occurred with other my other girl friends.

Over the years our passion for Ponies gave way to crystal-mania and later fantasy-based video games. I have Anne to thank for my first viewing of “The Last Unicorn” and doubtless other favorites. Although we lost track of each other during our teenage years I always held Anne in the highest regard. For me she represented my wondrous Eastern Oregon early childhood and limitless imagination.

I was delighted to recently find her on the internet and although we have yet to reconnect more than our mutual Facebook followingship it was wonderful to see Anne's profile, a self-portrait in pencil. 

Although I wrote to Anne many times in my diary, here is the first entry in which I mention this very special friend.

*Name changed.