Lessons from Thelma

 

This is me with Thelma Kanter.

Thelma and I met during a time of great tumult in my life. My new husband and I had just moved to Seconsett Island, renting a beach house on the Kanter Family Compound. I had followed Dr. Thompson to Cape Cod where he was a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. I was adrift among the scientists and my friends kept saying, you're so lucky! You're living in paradise! And, life's a beach!

I'm not a beach person. I'm a city girl. I like the night life. Don't ask how I ended up on a farm, okay? It just happened. I suppose I changed.

Thelma and I bonded immediately. Not because she was motherly--not to me, anyway--but because she was a true friend. And yes, she was also old enough to be my mother, but she never allowed me to squeeze her into the role of surrogate mother. She was much too complicated and interesting for that. And truth be told, up until this moment, I had spent most of my adult life, looking for the woman who could fit into that role. I had lost my real mother when I was seven years old. She had a nervous breakdown, entered into a mental institution and was replaced by a violent doppelgänger.

So, you could say that at the ripe old age of fifty--I was still a little lost--still searching for my real mother. However, Thelma had absolutely no interest in this psychodrama. She had five adult children of her own. Instead, she wanted to talk to me about history and literature. Art, films and politics. And she wanted to go out for dinner at Bleu in Mashpee and drink Old Fashioneds--her preferred cocktail. No mother-daughter advice!

Ah, but there was something else. Something so much better--a friendship of equals.

Creative Friends--sometimes, you don't actually need a surrogate mother--that perfect woman who neatly fits into the role--a woman who is there for your every need, a woman who never changes, never grows, never says the wrong thing, is completely reliable--frozen in time within your own imagination.

Here’s what we all need—a good friend, an imperfect person, and a true adult.

Love,

Jamie