I want everybody in my circle.

Rayceen Pendarvis is a spiritual guide, a community leader, an entertainer, a manicurist, and a radio personality. I expect he plays other roles as well, and he calls himself "father of five and mother of many." He did manicures and pedicures for six members of the wedding party today, and he wooed us all with the beauty of his heart and the kindness of his spirit. We got to his salon at about 10 a.m. and stayed till nearly 4 p.m. Rayceen provided orange juice, crackers and cheese, and a box of doughnuts in addition to stories that made us laugh and cry and want to move in and live with him. The Best Woman brought champagne, croissants, and watermelon spears. Anybody who thinks that the art of conversation is dead needs to hang out in a nail salon in Washington D.C. for a day. My head is still spinning from the joy of the storytelling (and I did not partake of the champagne, so it really is the use of language that has me spinning).

P.S. The hottest topic of conversation, other than everybody's love stories, was the book every one of us had read: Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns. It's an account of the Black Migration in the USA (I've written about it in other blips, but I can't now remember when.) Rayceen said he has lost count of how many copies he's given away because he wants everyone to read it. Amen to that!