Gold:

It’s not by accident, I think, that I grew up with the notion that as I matured, my opportunity and desire to meet new people, make new friends, would decrease.  The Common Conversation, my seconds-ago, made-up term for unspoken cultural norms and expectations that hovers a like swollen cloud over our hearts, lives, and dreams, convinced me that life as an adult would not be so much lonely as complete.  Things falling into place –click, click, click– like those red and yellow discs in the game Connect Four.

I’d take my gold friends -couple from high school, a few more from college- and shine ’em up once in a while.  Done.

Silver:

I think I was maybe four years out of college before I realized that a number of factors made my above assumption just not true (for me.)

1.) College town: there’s about a billion (just over fifty) here in greater Boston area.  All those smart/clever/engaged/engaging/inspired/inspiring people coming and going.  Some of whom get snagged in the net that trows behind me even when I think it’s not.

2.) Work: Duh!  There are people at work.  More importantly, folks whose values match mine, whose interests and desires I share.  Even if I tried, I could not resist deepening some of these connections -and the choice is not always mine.  Also, I’m a community worker, which brings us to . . .

3.) I like people: Isn’t it funny to rediscover what you long-knew in a wordless kind of way?

So, in the cold, cranky, over-educated city where I’ve heard people describe difficulty breaking into culturally, and where I’ve heard other people claim a depth of connection that they could not quite achieve elsewhere, I continue to fall down the rabbit hole.  Silver, all the way.

Friends warm up in JP

It’s fairly safe to say that moving to Boston for college exploded my social circle by probably two hundred percent! I was not a complete loner in my younger years -I had my family, pets, a few close school companions (including my now partner,) and a collection of friendly co-workers.  If you flashed a quick light on my life, you’d catch more glimpses of tea and books than tea and conversation.

In college, it was firmly confirmed that companions are for conversation.  Unless it was finals week, people didn’t just get together and quietly read -or write, or knit, or eat, or anything!  Silence was for watching movies (maybe,) for sleepily trudging past one another in the bathroom, and little else.

My post college years have followed the same pattern: people get together and talk. That’s okay -I’m the first to offer a quirky observation, to sing a few lines of song, to exclaim over a victory or an injustice.  Once in a rare while though, I am treated to a moment like last Monday’s, where my breakfast companion and I found ourselves briefly in silent enjoyment of the treasure of each other’s company and the meal we made.

And when that happens, I think: this is lovely, this is good.