“A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold onto it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.’” —Alain de Botton

I feel equal parts attacked and validated by de Botton’s observation. Sometimes I wonder—what is the point of all this documentation? But, listen: I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me. This is reason enough to carry on.

I was here

San Diego, mid-May / ten girls, made family by blood and by love / a week together in a tiny beach house

I saw this

Gretta did yoga on the beach early in the morning and saw dolphins. The rest of us wanted to see them too, so that evening she performed an impromptu dolphin-summoning dance. No such luck, unfortunately. Perhaps the dolphins were intimidated by her spot-on impression.

Thursday was too cold and misty for the beach, so we drove to Balboa Park to see the rose gardens. Margaret found a patch of roses whose petals were yellow on one side and red on the other. With glee she covered up their name and asked us to guess the variety. Condiments, she gave as a hint. Salsa? No, but close! Ketchup and mustard? Yes! We asked an older gentleman to take our picture and his eyes lit up when he realized he’d have a captive audience for his antics.

At 11pm Margaret and I stood whispering in the dim kitchen; we got on the subject of feet and how odd they are. On a whim Margaret burst into Gwen’s room and said, “Gwen, are you awake? Show Carlotta how weird your feet are!” Gwen obliged (they’re not that weird). We tried to muffle our snorts to no avail. I can only hope in thirty years I will be showing off my sister’s feet to my daughter-in-law.

On our last day, determined to have a beach day, we put on swimsuits even though it was really too cold. Half of us eventually ran back to bundle up; the other stalwart half toughed it out. How many girls does it take to collapse a beach umbrella, you ask? Five in our case, and we still didn’t do it successfully. Oh well, what we lacked in technical skills was made up in amusement.

It mattered to me

After wine and pasta we had a group hug, all ten of us. Huddled together, Carla cried as she told us she couldn’t imagine better role models for her girls and the rest of us cried too, thinking about what we’ve lost this year and what we’ve gained in each other. I hope I have daughters so I can raise them to be just like these women.