The Girls from Ames:
A Story of Women & a Forty-Year Friendship
by Jeffrey Zaslow
Born in the same year as the girls in the book, with a similar small town upbringing and an even more similar group of close female friends, friends, that I still- in my forties, vacation with, I was drawn to the idea of this book and intrigued even more by the fact that an outsider wrote it, an outsider who’s a man.
Wall Street Journal’s Moving On columnist, Zaslow, opens The Girls from Ames with the explanation of how he learned of these extraordinary women and their bond, and how he came to write about it- a section that intrigued the story seeker in me.
Zaslow writes a story with a journalistic bent, but manages to portray the love and closeness of these friendship bonds as the tale unfolds.
Some of the characters seemed to be more eager to share their lives, more willing to open up for the sake of the book, but even those that fell into the background still came across as women you’d like to also meet and spend time with. I found myself comparing my friends to the girls, fitting us all into categories- athletic, popular, intellectual, hard working, nurturing...
I hate to laugh at the way Zaslow spoke of the differences of male-male friendships and female-female ones. It reminded me of a similar conversation I had just engaged in with my gal pals. The fact that our husbands know nothing of their co-worker’s or even casual friends’ lives… the fact that most of the time the only reason they have some of these friends is because we- the wives- introduced them.
I’m used to making new friends, and could associate with some of the women in the book who started over, came in late, or fell away a bit. Having moved more than 13 times in my adult life, I’m always leaving someone behind. Thanks to the Internet and cheap telephone plans, I’m able to continue to keep up with them and their families, although I wish the face to face time was more frequent.
Like the girls in the book, my friends and I have been through our stages of life together, and separately, each one finding their way- to marriage, through divorce, into motherhood and through the illnesses and deaths of loved ones.
After we rekindled some friendships face to face at our 20th high school reunion, we decided that turning forty was a worthy milestone to begin annual girls only reunions, preferably at a warm locale with lots of wine.
I found a large house in Hilton Head, one row back from the beach, with a private pool and plenty of beds.
One flew in from London, two drove separately from Atlanta, Georgia, one from Greenville, SC, one flew down from NJ, another from upstate NY, and the last of the group drove down from NC.
We were all married, some on their second marriage, and all but one of us had children, with one pregnant at the time- it was the second marriage baby, giving her a whopping thirteen years between kids.
We came together over food and wine and shared old stories and caught each other up on our daily happenings. There were still "preferred BFF's", but it wasn't as pronounced as high school... whether it was because of our age and new maturity or the time that had lapsed, I don't know. But we bonded, and we began to build a new kind of friendship- one that will last at least another twenty years.
If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. There is even a website to help you keep the girls straight, or learn more about them.
THE BOOK PAGE
Maybe reading this book will make you want to physically re-connect with your girlfriends, taking the social network "poke" to the next level, and planning that trip to the Caribbean that you had always dreamed of.
