I actually do have friends

Biking home from work last night, it was cold for an August evening, and I was loaded down with fresh produce bought in the am from the farmers’ market downtown.  I’ve been trying to eat “Five a day, the color way” and it’s not easy.  Muskmelons were three for $2, so had those, as well as a three-pound bag of apples, a dozen sweet peppers, and an eggplant.  My mom had given me a boatload of tomatoes the day before, so red is pretty well covered.  Anyway, after working late, the ride home was chilly and dark so I took an alternate route, right past the coffee shop that has half-price bakery after 8pm or whenever the baristas get to putting the sign out.  The lure of muffins was irresistible.  My friend happened to be there for the chattin’.  That was awesome: the perfect end to an almost-perfect day.

 

We couldn’t remember

Real story

E and I could never really remember how we actually met.  There was no one time.  I think we just sort of gradually became aware of each other as we followed our separate orbits and then gravity took over and we were friends.  I know I saw her on campus many times.  We dressed similarly and knew many of the same people.  That seems boring: there was nothing to remember.

 

Fake story

So we needed a story, which we then made up:  I was in a burning building, and E came by and rescued my cats. 

 

Takeaway

There may have been more details, but it’s even harder to remember a fake story.

 

Friend trade successful.

There was a period of time after college when all my friends seemed to move away in a drawn-out exodus.  Most of them gravitated toward another city just like ours but with longer, colder winters.  My good friend E was no exception. 

 

 For awhile I pondered the possibility of orchestrating a “friend trade,” thinking that some other person’s friend must have moved here, right?  There are people moving here all the time.  I thought about it.  Then I made it happen.

 

E had moved, sure, but we kept in touch and the last time she visited “here” she also visited an old friend from high school whom I had never met and who had lived in Europe, and recently moved back.   I Facebook friended the mutual friend, found out she was a knitter, and invited her to knitting club, picking her up because she doesn’t have a car and lives close by.  Weirdly, we hit it off by telling E stories and figured out pretty quickly what other unusual coincidences that we have in common.

 

Of course E caught us posting stories about her on each other’s Facebook pages, but they were all such interesting, funny, warm stories that- well, how could she be mad?  It is too hard to make real friends in this world, especially starting as an adult, to criticize how one can become friends.  I will have to post more about this.  Maybe tomorrow.