Keeping the Old: Perfect Moment Mondays

I am a terrible correspondent.  You'd think, with all of the email that I send, and all of the time I spent on the evil timesuck FB, I'd keep in better touch with friends.  But the reality, of course, is that electronic communication is simply not a substitute for the kinds of conversations you have in the dark, or the laughter and tears that are spilled over coffee, or the times when you sit together with someone and say nothing at all.

Back in high school, I had three good friends.  One of them is now a FB presence; we grew apart, because we really had nothing in common any more, and though she still reaches out once in a while, I don't tend to initiate contact with her.  One of them I've lost touch with entirely, though her sister lives in my town, and I see her posts on her sister's FB page, so I have some peripheral sense of what's happening in her life.  The third lives about 40 minutes away, and has a son two years old than mine.  We seem to cycle in and out of contact every few years, getting together and then drifting apart.  Of the three, she was the one who shared my values, my convictions, my sense of humor, and though she too has changed since high school (really, who hasn't), she's the person with whom I can still pick up a conversation where we left off, and still feel like there's something to say.

It had been about two and a half years since I'd seen her last.  I think I'd lost only one pregnancy when I saw her.  We lost touch for the usual reasons: busy schedules, the tour of birthday parties and swim lessons -- basically, life got in the way.  But I got a text message from her earlier this year, and my heart leapt.  It had been too long.

Finally, this weekend, we met for coffee.  It was one of the few beautiful days we'd had in a while: not too hot, not raining.  We get our coffee and walked, finding a bench in the shade.  And we talked nonstop for over an hour, about kids, about changes in jobs, about changes in careers, about loss, about fear, about hope.  And then--and perhaps this is most noticeable because she is hands down the most talkative person I know--there were spaces of silence, when the breeze would blow, and the sky would brighten overhead, and we'd sip our drinks, and appreciate just being where we were, together.

In a few days, I'm going to BlogHer.  I'm looking forward to meeting in person, for the first time, some of the people with whom I've developed friendships online over the past two and a half years.  (*And yes, I'm still a little bit nervous, because despite my fabulous online personality, it takes me a little while to warm up in person.  I dread being left on the periphery of conversation, though, so please come talk to me if you see me.)  I'm going with the intention of learning about writing and about myself, becoming inspired, and making new friends, with whom--despite the fact that we are women of words--I can sit and sometimes say nothing, and be understood.  Because really, in an era of information overload, sometimes the silence, together, is really what you need.

Perfect Iced Coffee

The Pioneer Woman has a fabulous recipe for iced coffee.  I'm not going to reprint it here, because she has better pictures than I could ever hope for, but I'll give you the link.  Now you have no excuse: invite that friend whom you haven't seen in too long to come for a tall cool drink.