She is not a quitter

Sometimes you find someone who says something for you better than you can say it yourself. I feel this way about my friend, Karen, when I read her blog. She sure can write that slice of life stuff and serve it ala mode.

Dispelling any false notions

Karen and I met in an online writing group nearly five years ago. She was smart, funny, and ever so sassy. She kept forum discussions coiffed and "skorted." From the first time I read a short story of hers that included Jesus buying Band-aids at a convenience mart, I realized that she was brilliant in that unoffensive way that so few people can carry off.

We only knew "of" each other until we formed a smaller writing circle with two other women. We called it The REALLY Cool Club. The four of us began to share the bits and pieces of our lives that had been knit together with the tears of time to make us into the women we were. Kids and love and God and moms and dads and husbands and dogs and, and, and...

I learned to love the gentle way she could dissect a story--somehow rearranging the parts to make them bigger than the whole. She could nudge a missing word into a sentence adding the strength it needed to stand at attention.

She became a friend during a period of my life when I had grown certain that I didn't need friends. And, it just happened--like Aristotle's slow and ripening fruit. I was able to talk to her about things that needed an ear that could listen without judgment. In our space, I found a place to rest. I grew to value the wisdom she offered when I asked, and the silence she kept when I didn't.

About six months after we formed, our little group decided to meet in person. This was a sign of the times--friends brought together by pixels on a screen. And, it was the moment of truth. The masks drawn by our words would be lifted to reveal who we really were.

We met in Mystic, CT. And, it was so very, very strange and so very, very wonderful at the same time.

We mixed martinis in our mouths, laughed loud, talked much. It was Karen, though, that I found myself watching the most. The way she carried herself. The words she chose. I waited to hear what she would say next. I was delighted when she talked about "the triangulation of desire" and used the word "trajectory." As we drove around Mystic, she wondered aloud if the winters were "punishing." We teased her about that for the rest of the weekend. As well she should have been teased for such a comment.

The next year she came to stay for a few days with me and the family. We saw the sights, went to lunch with friends, and she visited the Pee-body Es-sux Museum. I even took her to work with me one day. I think her favorite part was poking around the thrift shop finding little treasures and what-nots. It was an easy kind of visit. The kind where you don't worry about your guest. I was sorry on the day I drove her to the 128 station to catch the train that would speed her back towards home.

In the months and years that followed, our friendship went through those kinds of contortions that friendships go through. Friends, like flowers, get a little wilted if you don't water and tend them. We got limp around the edges, but I have never forgotten the friend I found when I least knew I needed one.

The stuff she writes on her blog is not her real writing. It is, however, a sampling of the mind that weaves stories with one of the truest voices I have ever had the fortune to read. I believe with all my heart she will be published one day soon. And, I am glad she is not a quitter.

I also believe we are overdue for a good catching up.