I encountered some very beautiful things on my journey to Houston and back. Painted naked ladies, real almost-naked ladies, a young Richard Gere. The most beautiful thing, however, was sharing a few minutes with my mentor from college. I was at this AASFE conference to speak on multimedia and food panel, and she was there to be inducted into the organization's hall of fame (although she admitted in her acceptance speech that she'd never been a features writer just that she always tried to write news stories with elements of features-like storytelling). I didn't know until Thursday night that she was going to be there. It had been about 3 years since I'd seen her. Before Julian. Before Ian. Before Austin. Before Troy died. (She was Troy's favorite sensei first.)
I caught up with her right before the luncheon. We caught up on life in general and the journalism industry, but for a wordsmith master and a wordsmith-in-training, it didn't take many words to communicate our thoughts and emotions.
I've always thought of Jacqui as so much more than a teacher, and for the first time, I realized she probably feels the same way about me.
We parted; she had a gravely ill mother waiting on the other side of yet another long plane ride, and I had my job, my baby, my family awaiting me in Austin. Such different lives, but always connected by a bright, hopeful, encouraging thread.
That, young grasshoppers, is far more beautiful than a 28-year-old Richard Gere.
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