Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A Cuppa

This is how is happened: I had returned from Pete's Trip. (Wanderlust - March 2009) Somehow -- I don't remember how -- I learned of an organization called Women Welcome Women World Wide. The 5 W's have strict rules about only spending a night or two in the home of another member, but it's meant to have a welcome ready in various parts of the world. I have never used the opportunity myself, (though I'd love to have traveled that much!), but have welcomed folks traveling into my residence city. My apartments have been too small for overnight guests who are not old friends or relatives. (air mattresses?) But I took a charming lady with purple hair, newly arrived from Australia, for a day in Manhattan. I've had dinner with a traveling group of 5 W members in Boston. I've email-chatted with many members. One day (2004 maybe?) while I was living in the NYC area and working in Manhattan, I looked up 5 W news on the internet. There was a request from a member visiting from the UK for someone to spend a couple of hours with her in Manhattan. Her husband was attending a conference that afternoon in Princeton, NJ. Instinctively I responded -- "I can do that." So we agreed to meet at around 3:30 pm in the lobby of the office building where I worked. It was in the East Village, so I anticipated a great walking-tour around the neighborhood.

That day it poured. Not rain -- pouring rain. My guest's name was Jan; I waited in the lobby holding a flower so she'd know who I was (I think it was a daisy? oh m'gawd!). Jan arrived in her windbreaker and her trainers -- soaking wet. We chatted for a few minutes. She was shivering. So I hurried her off to a little tea/coffee place on MacDougall Street called La Laterna. We sat down near the fireplace and ordered a pot of tea. We chatted as though we had reunited after many years; two strangers with instant recognition of each other. By the second pot, we had done the biographies, the major history, and were up to the hopes and dreams. By the end of the second pot, it was almost 8:30. Jan tracked down her husband, and invited me to have supper with them. I declined since I had to get back to Fort Lee and it was a "school night." We went to the subway, and before I could get her a ticket, she'd bought one from some guy for half-fare and was on the other side of the turnstile by the time I got up to the ticket machine. On the train, this uncommon woman told me she'd be traveling alone with backpack into Asia (I think that's right) and had never done such a thing before. Neither had I. We were both very impressed at the concept. I walked her to her hotel and headed for the bus station. We promised to keep in touch. Don't we usually say that?

We did. Email is a wondrous thing. A couple of years later we met again and had supper at a little Italian restaurant on Ninth Avenue. We talked and talked. Jan wanted to get together Sunday evening before she and John headed for the airport. I was chairing an evening of play readings -- the Carnegie Collaborative reads plays by playwright alumni of Carnegie Mellon University. She said they'd love to attend. I warned her that we sat on folding chairs in a dusty studio. She was not deterred. She and John arrived with their luggage and stayed through Act I, leaving only because they had a plane to catch. They were charming and genuinely pleased to have shared part of the evening, never having attended a reading before.

That was probably 2005. In July, 2006, I moved back to Beverly, MA, and became a "Temp" again. Jan and I stayed in touch; she traveled to Vietnam where she worked in hospital helping little children. Among other awesome trips. What an inspiration! I directed plays in community theatre. She thought this so creative and exciting. The next time we met face to face was Spring 2009, when her son ran the Boston Marathon. I was so happy to be able to give Jan and John a tour of the North End (in the rain!) and an impromptu visit to a very special art exhibit in a church on Newbury Street. The next day they came to Beverly, and we toured Newburyport and Gloucester and drove around the North Shore. In October, Jan returns to Vietnam and to the Children's Medical Center there. Then she and John will tour China. I love hearing about her trips. And she was so supportive when I took my 6 day birthday holiday in Italy. She phones me and has been an excellent friend through my daughter's surgery. It's my plan to go to England next Spring to see them there.

I do not exaggerate the importance of this friendship, serendipitous as it was from the start. I have had very close friends though not many "girl friends." Most live in other states; I've renewed friendships with a couple here in Beverly and they've been great. What's interesting to me is that I know my friendship with Jan is unconditional. Maybe it's easy to be that way at this distance. I don't believe that's the reason. I have/had a friend of 19 years; a dear lady who -- after one not-so-pleasant a dinner meeting, just walked away. Not a word. Friends from the workplace from which I was laid-off in May have vanished. What's that about? A childhood friend did the same thing a number of years ago because she didn't believe that Pete had given my son and me the trip abroad. "People don't do things like that," she said. How sad for her to believe that. How lucky for me to have known that.

Anyway. I sat in a small cafe the other day and had a cup of tea. A cuppa. And I thought of Jan. People touch our lives. How great is that? I was impressed to write about it. Thanks for listening.

(with Jan and John in Boston)

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