A Tribute to Our Aria on Her Birthday
Not only is today the launch of this exciting artistic endeavor but it is my dearest co-creator’s birthday!!! I can’t think of a more perfect day to launch “Big Sky and Wildflowers,” than the day of the year that is dedicated to celebrating her. After all, this blog is a safe space for us to share our joys and hopes, triumphs and wisdom, and explore the creativity and magic that exists within each of us. There is no one I would want to do this with more. She is at once both my partner and my inspiration.
I have actually lost count of how many birthdays I have been given the pleasure of celebrating with Aria, but we have been running around this crazy world as kindred spirits for over half our lives. When we met as freshmen in high school, there was an instantaneous connection. We were young for our ages, still totally invested in the wonder of the world, not yet ready to pass by the innocence of childhood. Both of our childhoods had been magical spheres of imagination, nature, and play. We had been so lucky to live in homes where we were supported, and loved without reservation and knew that beyond everything, we were safe to be exactly who we were. When we recognized that in each other and in the third of our trio, Tizzy, we knew that we were complete.
We navigated high school as a unit. There was no separating us. Of course, there were times when we had to be in different places for class, and there were other friends and people in our lives, but they came and went. We were always a constant. In fact, we were known to the rest of the high school microcosm as one entity. If one of us was missing, the first question anyone asked was “where is ___ today”. Of course, I’m sure that our constant connection might have felt a little strange from the outside, but we were completely oblivious to most outside judgement. We had no problem wearing our vintage Gunne Sax dresses to school or taking photos together late at night on the campus of a local church in all manners of outfits, that was just how we did it. I was supremely happy knowing I was theirs and they were mine. And that remains to this day.
Aria is a magnificently intelligent human. She devours knowledge and pursues learning with a keen ambition. All she takes upon herself to learn, she will understand from every angle. When she decided to study anthropology, she quickly became an expert, wanting nothing more than to continue the voracious consumption of knowledge. She is my source for deep thought. Just about everything I question or don’t understand, I can take to her for explanation. She will diligently and expansively teach me until I understand each aspect of the idea or topic. There are very few out there who can so thoroughly master deep thoughts and then turn around and be able to make those points of learning accessible to those around them.
She is also a supremely magical creature. She is the first person I can remember who read my tarot cards. It was a deck of goddess themed tarot cards that were mystical, and beautiful, and felt untouchable by anyone other than her. We could carve out a spot on her bedroom floor and she would spread them out before me, instructing me to pick the cards that spoke loudest to me. Then she would slowly flip them over and with each progressive one, be able to tell me what seemed like my innermost secrets with ease and mystical understanding. That magic did and still does permeate every step she seems to take, from her understanding of herbs and supplements, to her green touch in her magnificent garden, to the gorgeous nature-based world she has raised her children in.
Aria was the first of us to become a mother and she has the most beautiful, spirited children. She was the first of us to take the journey through pregnancy and birth into motherhood and I look to her as an inspiration with every question I have in my own parenthood path. She has raised imaginative, kind, and creative children whom I love with my whole heart. Every time I see them, I marvel at how lovely they are. And I know that my friend’s hand was instrumental in making them the fairy children that they are. They will change the world some day and I hope they take my kiddos along for the ride.
I am exceptionally proud of my best friend. She is the wife, mother, performer, and creator I aspire to be. I know that she has so much to share with the world and that you, our readers, will love knowing her at least a small fraction of how I do. Please join with me in wishing her a happy, happy birthday. I love her so and I’m sure you will too!!