How we met...

I have had writer's block. Much I want to say but not knowing how to start. So, I do what I do when this occurs. Try to just write whatever comes. When that does not work. I try it again. Text you for a writing exercise and try to meditate. Tonight, I finally turned to finding a good book to read and I discovered Dear Exile, the book you lent me that I forgot I had, sorry. I read it with fervor. Gratefully it got my mind going and the impulse to write soared back into me. And while you are not in Kenya nor I in NYC, we are split into two different worlds with different but similar realities and a deep abiding love for one another. For this I feel blessed.

It also got me thinking about how meeting you even came to be, such a long and winding road. I left the safety of St. Paul for the adventure of rediscovering Boston as a young married person with two kids and days after landing there found I was pregnant with our third child. Peter and I landed in Annisquam, a quaint portion of Gloucester where the fishing industry and many people who thrive on it are depressed, but Annisquam holds it charm. There we birthed our third son, on the coast of the Atlantic during a harsh, gray February, with snow drifts waist high. There we also lived over a year without many of our personal belongings, all of what we owned minus 10 boxes was stashed in storage. We watched the housing market tank and the prices from the west coast drop finally beginning to dip in Boston and it's surrounding towns. If it was not for that tenuous stay there and another invitation to move west I might still be there and never know the beauty nor the arid dryness of Santa Fe. If we hadn't taken the leap to be there, I never would have met you that sunny winter day when I loaded my three boys in the car to go to Fort Marcy. At my wits end that morning with them bugging one another I demanded that they get their coats on. My boys still in their pajama feet with boots over them, protested into the car until I placed them on the swings at the park. You strolled up pregnant with M. and encouraging P. to climb and slide. Us the only two insane mothers out in the brisk winter morning.

I remember getting off my cell as you approached and thinking I could be friends with her. I also remember for a brief moment that morning my boys each in a swing next to one another were harmoniously swinging in unison. It was like an answer to my unspoken longing of finding a friend that day at the park. A friend I could relate to and who would lovingly encourage and challenge me into feeling human again after my third child and two major moves in two short years. All the things we stored for over a year began to find their home and having a dear friend in you brought me home again when I felt in such foreign territory. So on Valentine's Day I write to say thank you for braving the cold winter winds of Santa Fe and being at Fort Marcy on that winter morning, much love my dear friend.