“I have something for you,” my dear friend Kim Porter messaged me on Facebook the other night. The next morning, I was holding a tiny brown paper bag.

I gasped when I pulled out the contents: a pendant hanging on a ball chain, fashioned out of an old silver spoon, featuring a bronze cutout of a little girl.

Sophie.

Kim is a very special person in my life. We met when she was cast to play me in a production a group of us put on in Scottsdale almost a decade ago — a series of monologues written by Mothers Who Write students and instructors, put together into a play called “Pearls.”

For as embarrassing as it was to have someone “play” me, it was worse when I realized what a freaking amazing writer Kim is herself. But she was gracious and lovely and said all the right things, and I felt like she truly understood what I was going through as a mom, as Sophie’s mom. Her performance was the definition of transcendent. (Lisa Fogel, who did the role, too, was also amazing.)

And so Kim didn’t need to give me any more gifts, other than the joy of getting to see her perform on stage throughout the subsequent years. Our older children are close in age and go to the same school, so we carpool, and it was Colette who handed me the brown paper bag last Friday.

I immediately put on the pendant, tears in my eyes. Kim couldn’t have known how much I needed armor — Ray and I were scheduled to tour Sophie’s future junior high that very afternoon.

I collect pendants the way other people collect tattoos. I think it goes back to my mom. Superstitious, she never travels without wearing a now-old locket with photos of my dad, sister and me in it; I think the words “My World” are engraved on the front.

When Sophie was a baby, my friend Laurie presented me with two pendants — photos of each of my girls, with their names on the back. (What’s up with writers who take up metalworking? Interesting.) I wear them when I travel, and when I need extra good luck, accompanied by a chain-full of other meaningful charms I’ve picked up along the way.

I make a lot of noise when I walk when I’m wearing them all. And now I make a little more noise, with the addition of Kim’s piece.

She wrote to me later that day:

When I first started making it I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt guided by the sort of woman-like shape of the back of the spoon handle and how I felt a child went there. An alone child. Idiosyncratic, independent, a little vulnerable, but not aware of it. A child who is protected by a somewhat invisible maternal force. It seemed like the woman was always there and strong and invisible to the child who seems to think she’s doing it all on her own, and that must be how the woman wants it, because she never makes herself fully known. I kept thinking about your girl in the party hat picture and feeling like I was making her or even you, I really wasn’t sure what I was doing, I was just guided by a feeling about you, something to do with you. And then as it went on and I actually started shaping her hair and features I realized I was making Sophie. Or more accurately, I was making a child that was both you and Sophie. As I was working on the piece I spent a lot of time thinking about the similarities between you and Sophie. How you are both so social and yet so independent and a little stubborn. How you both have a genius for believing yourself to be tougher or more jaded than you actually are. How you both have strong and ever-present mothers, who guide you in ways that may not always be obvious. And you and/or Sophie have balls in the air, balls you are maybe moving by magic.

It’s funny. I really had never thought of you and Sophie as so much alike until I spent time musing about you as I made the pendant.

See? I told you Kim can write. How lucky am I to have this person in my life?! I read her note and held up the pendant, noticing the balls for the first time.

The meeting at the new school went okay. As well as can be expected, really. I walked out thinking, “That was fucking awesome!” and a week later, I’m not as excited, but I’m okay with it. Earlier this week we had Sophie’s IEP meeting, and that went fine, too. I wore Kim’s pendant. I didn’t cry.

And tonight I’ll stand onstage at Lit Lounge at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and read a piece about Sophie and puberty. I’ll be wearing all my armor, including my new pendant — and working as hard as I can to channel my inner Kim Porter.

But my favorite AB creation of late is one I found last week in her “important papers” folder in her backpack. I don’t know if she wrote it for a school assignment or just because.

friendship

friends are good to have.

friends will keep you

company. friends are nice

to friends.

“Oh come on,” he said. “She’ll LOVE the piano concert. You can watch both of them, no problem.”

Annoyingly, Ray is almost always right, so why was I surprised when, in fact, Sophie did love the piano concert? The both part — that’s where he was wrong.

We were out with Mrs. M., O. and L., friends from school who have come — in a little more than two years — to be a big part of our lives. (Stop crying, Mrs. M.! Mrs. M. has been a bad influence on my own tear ducts.)

Anyhow, L. and Annabelle, who are the same age and have been in the same class since they had the fabulous Ms. X. for kindergarten, are both taking piano lessons. Well, sort of.

I can’t honestly recall the last time Annabelle practiced. Part of that is due to the fact that, um, we don’t actually own a piano. We do have a keyboard, so it’s technically possible, but if you’ve seen our playroom lately you know the avalanche that must be risked to retrieve the keyboard or any other item in the room. I am told that we’ll be inheriting my grandparents’ piano — a lovely whitewashed upright number carefully chosen by some Scottsdale interior decorator in the 70s. I can’t imagine where we’ll put it.

Annabelle and L. did seem excited about going to see their teacher perform; so did O., L.’s older sister. I wasn’t so sure about Sophie; she’s not the best at sitting still.

The evening started out well, with margaritas (for the adults) and the macarena (for the kids) at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. The girls got the wiggles out (or so we thought) by shimmying to the stylings of a particularly raucous group of mariachis. Oblivious to what was ahead, Mrs. M. and I drove a few blocks to a gorgeous little cathedral in downtown Phoenix and took our seats in the front row, ready for the concert.

Really, the setting was amazing, so un-Phoenix (my poor hometown takes a beating, and no more so than from me — or is it from I?) and the trio that played, including the piano teacher, was stunning. Sophie curled up in Mrs. M.’s lap; O. sat perfectly still, enchanted. Even I relaxed after a long week and enjoyed it.

For about 30 seconds.

Annabelle and L. were a mess from the first note. “Can we go outside?” L. whispered loudly — oh, I don’t know, maybe 100 times in the first 10 minutes. Annabelle giggled, fidgeted, and tried to dance in the aisles. There were requests regarding pedicures and questions about prayer books.

Toward the end of the first half, Sophie did pop off Mrs. M.’s lap and insist on saying hello to the performers. I had to keep a death grip on her.

No one was surprised that we didn’t stay past intermission.

Afterward, Annabelle didn’t say a word about the concert. She and L. moved on immediately — mainly to the rich contents of the backseat of my car (which included an Elmo costume, remote control puppy and several books) and the topic of what sort of ice cream they’d get for dessert.

Sophie’s mentioned the piano — and imitated the flute playing — several times since. Maybe she’ll be my musician. She DOES do a mean macarena.