Family Circles

Making and keeping friends has always been important to me. Maybe it’s because my adult life has unspooled far from my birthplace or maybe I’m just a fourth-generation, friendly Texan (the state was named for the Tejas Indians; tejas=friendly). I would like to introduce some circles of friends I think of as families. First there are my Phillips friends, the ones I went to school with from age six to eighteen. Nine of us, pictured above in Asheville NC in 2010, get together regularly and stay in close touch by email. Many more were at my 50th high school reunion this past summer in Borger, Texas.

Friends from Rice University, those who came to Washington in the late 1960s and are still here, are like sisters.  Since 1977, when we moved to our present house, my life has been greatly enriched by friends in my neighborhood and in Cherrydale United Methodist Church, especially the choir and the women of Miriam Circle. Northern Virginia Music Teachers, PTA Boards and Junior League committees were my focus in the 1980s. In the 1990s I joined two book groups which function as post-graduate literature classes, but also include great fun, food and mutual support. I feel very blessed to have all these dear families.