Category: Friends

Today I made a trip to the post office to mail a letter. 

My friend, Princess Sanet de Jager, is an Afrikaans princess in South Africa. I met her when I was eighteen on my family’s royal African tour. My castle was directly adjacent to hers, but diplomatically we waited to be introduced through a mutual friend and then began sending one another letters over the wall that separated our gardens. She was clever, loyal, and under her cool demeanor burned a passionate soul. I was overjoyed to find such a beautiful soul, but as was proper for a foreign visiting princess, I waited for her to extended her invitation to visit. Before long, she did.     

She welcomed me cordially, speaking beautiful English, pushing aside the growling, rolling-eyed boerbull guardians of her house who tried to lunge as I entered the gate. Inside the castle, I felt eyes on me from every side. Later I discovered this was because thirteen cats guard the inside. Matteus, the huge gray cat, stalked past eyeing me defiantly and I didn’t dare stroke him.  

This visit being a success, we had more and more visits, and finally one day, we realized we were friends. In the wake of her personal tragedy and my struggle with side effects of acne medication, we became very close friends, even though most days all we could do was email one another over the wall. Together we learned that unity was our only hope for survival.  You see, in that place, almost all of the other eighteen-year-olds had started university in other countries. We were both isolated and desperately needed eachother’s support.

Next April marks seven years that I have been away from Africa and have not seen Sanet. Things are so different now: we both live on our own and travel freely, we flirt at will, we’re both enjoying careers we’re passionate about. Our friendship stays strong and will continue to do so… because we are both strong women determined to love one another through the distance. 

I don’t send Sanet letters as often as I should, but recently, I decided to make and send a special one. Sometimes, in antique stores, you find lovely vintage letters on aged yellowed paper with elegant stamps… and the finest handwriting! I got interested in making paper look aged (without cheating by using coffee, which is acidic, eating your precious paper over time). Below is a step-by-step of my method for making Sanet’s letter.

First, I stamped my paper with gold:

   
 
Next, I treated the edges with water for a ripple effect:

  
When that dried, I brushed the edges with an ink-pad for a rough-edged, dirty look:

   
 
And last but not least, I burned the pages with fire… Putting a few spots on them as if they’d been read at night by the light of candles.

  
Then, I took a while to decorate the envelope.

  
The final touch… And of course the most fun… Was the wax seal. You can find these at any big craft supply store. I love gold, so I sealed the letter with a gold fleur-de-lis.

When the letter arrives at Sanet’s palace in Cape Town, where she lives now working as a University interpreter, I hope she has as much fun receiving it as I did making it! 

And maybe one day soon, I’ll make the journey to the Cape.

I can’t wait.

 -The Dauntless Princess-

  

I spent last weekend out in the country at the King and Queen’s house.

The roads changed as I drove out of Atlanta.  First there were the superhighways: twelve lanes of traffic flowing fast, the cars like a school of minnows on caffeine.  Next there were the highways, where traffic thinned and drivers pushed the speed limit while watching out for cops.  Then the road branched to a four-lane divided highway.  After driving past Buford, all remnants of Atlanta’s focused, bursting energy died behind two Cadillacs with wheelchairs on their license plates drag-racing past Habersham.  Finally, through the fog of the rainy north Georgia day, I turned onto a quiet neighborhood road and followed it to a gravel road.  I’d arrived at my parents’ country home.

My parents left a sunny stuccoed six-bathroom castle with a pool, guest flat, and manicured garden for semi-retirement in the country, downsizing to a small home there.  Throughout the driven, sleep-deprived college years, throughout the years spent grasping for threads of a quickly vanishing narrative of worldly success, this country home was a place where my mind slowed down again to a reasonable pace.  I found my head was clearer here and my dreams came back into focus.

My father the King, who used to be an air ambulance pilot, now works at the airport.  He owns and manages the business, working for himself as a small-business owner and entrepreneur as he usually does.  His favorite part of his work is always people.  People who fly in and fly out, people who wander out to see airplanes for fun, people who drop by to visit him and just want to talk.  His favorite thing, I think, is doing small things to help people.  He also loves men of history and reads through many thick biographies each year.  I go out to see him since he works every day there, usually asking questions about my car and talking (sometimes arguing) about life and politics.

My mother the Queen can usually be found goading my youngest brother through his high school curriculum, cooking something healthy, reading the latest health research, doing cardio in the gym, or finding beautiful things in thrift stores. She is the reason the house’s floors gleam and the one bathroom is not disastrous. She loves having tea parties with friends – I usually give her pretty teacups for her birthday, and she collects them from all corners of the world, so teacups peek out from all the house’s nooks and crannies.  I always have tea when I’m home, making it in the big white ceramic pot and pouring it into my favorite of her cups.

My sister the princess Mackenzie bounces in and out of the house these days, no longer the home-bound highschooler: she is enrolled full-time in college classes, runs cross-country, gets involved on campus, has a boyfriend, and works part-time.  She comes home at midnight and leaves at five o’clock in the morning, and that’s barely exaggerating.  My mother says she has the energy of a squirrel.

My brother the prince Asa is back from finishing his solo thru hike of the Appalachian Trail, and beginning to emerge from the blissful haze of abundant food. He works part time and is starting to plan his life… although what exactly that will be, no one else is allowed to know yet.

My brother the prince Asher, my youngest brother, has grown enormously tall in the past few years and now towers over everyone in the family, waving giant limbs like a preying mantis as he articulates very strong opinions about religion and politics.  He’s the confident prince who’s not really worried about being wrong or striking off in a completely unusual direction.  For instance, he’s the only one of us who’s at all interested in video games computers… leading us to believe he may have been switched at birth.  We’re not quite sure where he came from.

The royal dog doesn’t exist at the country home yet, although they’ve been planning to get one for about four or five years.  When that happens, though, it will be a German Shepherd.  It’s impossible to imagine our family having anything but a stubborn male German Shepherd.

I spent the weekend not doing anything, really… simple pleasures were highlights, like eating pizza and watching Hogan’s Heroes from our full DVD collection.  I got up Saturday morning and made thick pancakes we ate with delicious fresh strawberry jam.

It’s my privilege to travel frequently.  As I write, I’m sitting in a beautiful part of Maryland that’s on the edge of spring.  But I still daydream… idyllic, thoughtful weekends in the country with such a wonderful family aren’t things to be taken for granted.

~ The Dauntless Princess ~

I watched the rainfall from my window. Another cold, rainy afternoon with me indoors yawning. Then I heard a knock on my door. Mail!

It was a small yellow envelope. I thought it was for another occupant of my house, but when I saw the handwriting on the outside of the package, I knew. This was an ambassador from the magical kingdom of gastropods. Roger had arrived.

I tore open the package quickly. “Hello! Welcome!” I said.

Roger climbed out slowly. He was almost the size of my hand with a smooth brown shell and undulating, slimy flesh. The large eyes regarded me from the end of the stalks on his head. “Red isn’t your color,” he said.

Ah yes. The famous social graces of snails. Anyone who’s ever talked to a snail knows: they’re crotchety. But I didn’t ask this slow-moving creature here because he makes me feel good about myself; I asked him here because gastropods are wise and give good advice. Better than Google Maps on its good days.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Yes. Terrible journey. Take me outside, put me down on the nearest fallen log. And carry me, this shell is heavier than it looks.”

I fetched my umbrella and we went out to the nearest fallen log, a nice rotted one. Roger almost sighed with contentment but caught himself. “I almost didn’t come,” he said to me, digging in to the nearest organic matter.

“How come?” I asked.

“I forgot my magnifying glass and my pocket-watch. That watch is the only timepiece I trust. My great-grandfather made it!”

I opened my mouth to wonder why he didn’t trust satellites, but changed my mind.

“Anyway,” Roger went on, “that Prince of yours found me wandering Atlanta looking for the nearest post office drop-box and someone to help me with the envelope. It’s not easy downtown, for a snail.”

He chewed thoughtfully on a bit of moss, then spit it out. “Gross. Always try it, never like it. So your Prince fellow got me all packaged off.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here!” I said. “I’m honored.”

“Hm,” he said. “I’m overdue for another nap. I’ll see you tomorrow, or maybe the next day. Don’t wake me.”

And with that, he crawled inside his shell.

I could send him back. But as snails go, he is on the personable side. The last one I had, Richard, didn’t talk about anything but food… Snail food.

Roger will like it here with me. I’m happy to have such a small, wise companion. Making sure he doesn’t insult someone who’s never met a snail… Well, that’s a different story.