Virginia Wolfe was in touch with what she needed. She also contended that EVERY woman needs her OWN money and her OWN room. I agree. Or at least I know that I do. I’ll get back to this point if you’ll stay with me.
My friend Katja joined me for a long walk and dinner at my house tonight. (Just back from Napa with her husband, she brought the most yummy Rutherford Ranch Cabernet Savignon, 2007. I highly recommend this to folks who savor a robust and tantalizing red. Great with salmon, but I think everything is great with salmon and well, everything is great with a robust red…fish, fowl, the right brand of cereal or dark chocolate). I digress….
We came back after our walk and went directly to my kitchen ready for our anticipated glass of red lusciousness. Katja had read about the sad fate of my goldfish, Saskia from a former blog entry, ‘My Fish Died Today‘ (scroll down the page if you’ve not read the woeful saga). Katja had named my other goldfish Fritz, (my remaining one), after her motherland several months previous.
A note about my pal Katja. I adore and respect this woman immensely, and she’s fun, (a prerequisite for all my pals). She is a journalist, international media consultant and German tv celeb of sorts, (Katja Ridderbusch), (a regular on the German equivalent of ‘Meet the Press’), skill sets in international relations which intrigue and inspire me. She made a switch, followed her heart and is building a formidable career basing herself from Atlanta. She’s a special, (in the way that I boast about several of my few friends), most talented and unique woman. And she adores me which makes me shine from the inside out. It’s totally mutual.
Back to fishiness…..when we returned to my home, (smelling of freshly sauteed almonds for our greenbeans), Katja noticed my fish tank with just one goldfish and remembered the sad story of about a month ago. (However, I can now relay with some hubris, a fresh and clean tank, with lots of bubbles and no murky algae, not at all the scene from my not so distant travesty). Looking at her expression as she gazed upon my tank, I was reminded that Katja and I are both emotional sorts, we can get gooey over the smallest thing.
Katja: ‘Awww BB, poor Saskia.’
‘I know,’ I responded, ‘it was sad that she didn’t make it. But Fritz, he seems to be thriving, he’s shinier, he’s pumped up a bit.’
Katja could not take her eyes off the tank. ‘He really seems happy BB, and look, he’s smiling at me.’
A side note here…women can sense these things, honestly, I think I shared in my former post that my Saskia and Fritz would jump up in the tank when I entered each morning at feeding time. They did.
Katja moved closer to the tank, her German brow knit with deep complexity.
‘BB, Fritz is not a boy. Fritz is a girl. This is a female fish and it’s not Saskia…she had different markings.’
‘Well yes, I know she did, but how do you know Fritzy is not a boy.’
‘Look there,’ Katja pointed to the rear end of my gold and smiling fish.
‘Really!’ I retorted. ‘You’re kidding, I had no idea. I wonder why we hadn’t seen that before.’
‘It doesn’t show as much when they are young.’
‘So, you’re saying that Fritz….Fritzina is a mature young woman fish…female?’
‘It seems so,’ Katja responded in her adorable German accent.
I have to step back a moment, here we are, Katja and myself, two respected women in our various careers, professional, credible, speaking with 100% seriousness about the sex of my goldfish, with sadness in our voices about having lost a female named Saskia and delighted that the newly christened female, once named Fritz, now Fritzina, was looking effervescent and robust since the passing of her tank-mate Saskia. How funny and delightful really, in a most absurd kind of way. It is afterall the ‘little’ things that make such a difference in life.
‘Well BB,’ surmised my pal, ‘I think she is flourishing on her own, really, look at the golden glow she has.’
‘Well, I must say you are right, she’s grown, she seems to have a special swag when she turns and you’re right, I think she IS SMILING. Maybe it’s the bubbles I added to the tank after the last sad day of Saskia’s swimming career.’
‘Well, she does look robust, indeed. And really, it’s as though she now has highlights, she’s positively glowing.’
It was at that point that we moved to my chestnut wooden dining table for some olives and cheese to go with our Napa wine.
Katja looked just like she did when I saw her on her German tv show, serious, introspective, and totally credible.
‘BB, I think having her own space has made all the difference. A girl fish needs a tank of her own. She really is flourishing.’
I too was deep in contemplation, the wine going only a little bit to my head. ‘Yes, it’s as though she’s coming into her own, into her power. You know Katja, I think she’s even jumping a bit higher each morning than when she shared the tank with Saskia. I really do.’
Katja nodded her head vigorously. ‘Could be, could be. Yes, she’s positively glowing BB. I think the bubbles help and certainly how you’ve rearranged the plastic bushes and cleaned the place up, but yes, I think she’s coming into her own. Definitely.’
‘Can I pour you some more wine my friend.’
‘Surely’ responded Katja.
And so it is, we determined that a woman thrives when she has a room, (or tank) of her own.
BB Webb