Walking In Beauty

Several weeks ago I was tasked with writing an article for my very dear friend Johanna, the purpose and content of said article vastly different from anything I had ever written for friends in the past: a personal recommendation written by a best friend to accompany her application to a cosmetology program. While I have written previously countless pieces on behalf of friends, they have always been along the lines of corporate resumes, academic essays or recommendations, or (more often than not) emo blog posts. This was somehow different, for me, so it kind of threw me for a proverbial loop. It needed to be personal, yet relevant, and relevant in a way that was deeper than my current experience with cosmetology (i.e., “All right, Randazzo, the usual cut and double process brunette, please mmmkaythx!”), and I did not know quite how to accomplish that.

I spent a week and a half scribbling notes, outlining, beginning rough drafts, and eventually pitching them into the wastebasket. I was stymied. I was creative-blocked. Until I decided to discard all of my notes, remember fondly that time in my life, over a year ago, during which Johanna and I were crashing at each other’s respective apartments nearly every other evening following cocktail hours at ThirtyNine or Next Door or both, and write from the heart.

And I ended up writing it during a five minute cigarette break sandwiched between a project spec meeting and a trans-Pacific conference call with the Los Angeles office.

She walks in beauty, this Johanna woman. She has inspired so many words from me throughout the years that I have known her, been blessed with being her friend, and counted her creativity and her practical wisdom among the most treasured gifts of my life.

Extraordinarily driven, extemporaneously creative, and extremely attuned to the aesthetics of quotidian life, Johanna inspires every person she meets to love each day. I have lost count of how many times I have marveled at her sense of taste (food, wine, fashion, etc.), her attention to detail (the way two different fabrics in a single room work together, the way a single herb added to a dinner dish will change the dish’s entire flavor, the way a piece of life advice may be offered to a friend and, suddenly, everything seems so clear), and her genuine love of life.

This is a woman whose talents, creativity, and intuition extend far beyond any line item on her resume, any single detail one could glean from meeting her for the first time, or any drop of eloquently scented oil that she places, precisely, at the proper pulse points. This is a woman who knows aesthetics, who is creative enough to execute them, and who is intuitive enough to know if they will work with the person she is with at the time.

This is a woman who is ambitious, who is committed, and who finds it quite simple to make the lives of those around her better, be it by an intuitive back massage, by the lighting of the perfect scent of incense to enhance the mood of the evening, or by just being there; her simple presence makes each moment that much better.

This is a woman who is talented. This is a woman who is fashionable. This is a woman who would not only benefit from your institution’s program, but who would also take everything she learns from it, make it her own, and translate it into something wonderful for each client she assists in the future.

This is a woman who walks in beauty. And everyone who walks with her walks the same path.

It felt comforting to realize that I have friends about whom I am able to weave such laudatory words.

Even if some of those friends are now over six thousand miles away.

Filed under: Editorials, Writing , a-list, linkage, memories, needful reminders, salon therapy