Happy Birthday, Love.

I look at her across the table. The glow of the tea candle between us highlights her soft features and curtain of dark hair; I know this face so well. 

My earliest memories of her begin with our desks arranged end-to-end in our third grade classroom at the small private school we attended. We shared the same love for Beauty and the Beast, and I remember the day that we both came to school toting the same lunch boxes, pink with Belle on the front. 

She, with her terrible memory, does not remember this, but it's okay - somehow my elephant memory and her forgetfulness balance our relationship, the same way that her head for numbers and facts and order balances my flighty, rather unkempt, highly emotional existence. 

It's the reason I feel completely comfortable asking her to open my bathroom cupboards, not because she won't tell me that I'm a mess, but because I know she will. In fact, she'll stand there with me and tell me what to toss and what to keep when my own obsession with beauty products rivals that of my mother's. 

We're such opposites in some ways. She's at ease in a kitchen surrounded by twenty other cooks and waitresses, and in the chaos she maintains a focus that produces finely crafted breads and cakes, the likes of which you'll only find in artisan bakeries or her own mother's oven. 

I share her love for food and cooking, but in that same flurry of activity I'd be a basket-case; I have the scars to prove it. And while I can sit for days on end in front of my computer screen crafting essays out of words and blank pages (so long as the coffee and quiet hold out), she would be driven to madness within an hour's time of being faced with that task.

And yet. We're so compatible. There are few people in life that know the difference between stealing and sharing when it comes to a plate of food. We coordinate our orders at dinner to make sure we get the best of both worlds. On ritual Thursdays (movie + wine + dessert = weekly pre-weekend celebration) we can split a bottle of shiraz evenly, and we can split a box of frozen, store-bought cream puffs in one sitting and arrive at the same conclusion : good idea in theory, but let's never do that again.

Our childhoods were similar in so many ways: we grew up in the same church, our parents were friends, and we each survived life with a pair of torturous younger brothers. We are the only sisters we have. 

After nearly twenty years of this sister-love, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that she never left my side when mom died, and yet, as she walked into the room where my mother lay in her casket, tears sprang to my eyes, 

"You're here," I whispered. 

"Of course I am," she whispered back, wrapping her arms around my neck.

That's true love at it's best. Surprisingly faithful, radically selfless, quietly constant, wholly unconditional. It needs no explanation, it carries no complaint. It bears all things willfully, and it communicates without words : 

I will do the same for you.

Yesterday was her birthday, and what with her recent trip to Paris and my scant free time between work, writing, and art, I nearly forgot it. Thank God for my Google calendar. We did what we do best and made an impromptu dinner date, braved bumper-to-bumper city traffic to meet each other, and then there we were, splurging on steak frites and Sophie at Hopleaf. 

"You're 26," I say, raising my glass to toast her. 

"Wow. I am," she replies. 

We share that smile, the one that we've shared for a million milestones, big and small : 

We're growing up, but it's our little secret.

The Hard Conversations

I've written before about good conversations with close friends, but today I got to thinking about the hard conversations, the ones we seem to spend a lot of time and energy trying not to have.

As I scrounged late last night in frustration for one good thing to cling to on what turned out to be a rather horrid Monday, I remembered a conversation I had with one of my best friends earlier.

She had a wake to go to yesterday for a friend's mother who passed away suddenly this week.

"Ugh. Funerals make me sad," she said. "When I die, promise me you'll celebrate my life and wear lots of bright colors, okay?"

"Will do! Please do the same for me... Is it weird that I sometimes hear songs and think 'I want that played at my funeral?'" I asked, glad to finally confess this to someone.

"I totally do that all the time! And don't worry, I've got you covered," she replied.

"When I die, there should be karaoke, guitar hero, super bright colors and cake. Celebrate lives lived, not just the lives lost. Life is way too short, so go out and live it!" She soon posted on her Facebook status. Within minutes, several people responded with a 'Like' or comment in agreement.

"When I die, I want people to have a feast of scrumptious food and I want them to dance all night," I told her.

We then made a pact to write each other into our wills, to make sure that the other would be the 'party' planner in the event of our death. Our initial brainstorms included a bachelorette party redux, but we thought the erotic cake might be a little over the top for some of our relatives. We settled for posting pictures of good times we've had over the years.

As much as I hate to think of the death of someone who means so much to me, our conversation was the brightest part of my day. We always think that these are the things not to bring up, the things that don't need to be discussed. [After all, we're only in our twenties - who needs to think about dying yet...] But when you've had a crappy day at work, and you're worried about money and bills and what your future holds, and you're feeling the squelching pains of writer's block, and you're missing family so bad it hurts, do you really want to chat about the weather?

Sometimes, it's the biggest sigh of relief, the deepest breath of fresh air to tell your best friend,

Yes. I will be there for you. Even then.

Suddenly, the thing you've been trying not to say or acknowledge, the really hard, awkward conversation you don't want to discuss, turns out to be the only thing worth saying.

Don't be afraid to say that one thing that might open the floodgate to admitting that life is hard and scary and short,

and beautiful and joyous and worth celebrating,

even as we say goodbye to it.

Picture courtesy of the lovely Erin Lee, taken about a bizzilion years ago... or maybe only 5. I can't believe it's been that long! I love you, Rachie. <3

Stranger than Fiction

I've decided to stop fighting it.

What exactly? I was driving home yesterday contemplating, once again, my writing woes. My ever-encouraging twitter friend, Friederike, tweeted a word to me the other day:

"Very often, our characters tell us what they are up to. We must take our time and wait a little to find out what they want."

And then, in response to my whiny, "But what to do while I wait for them to speak to me?" Friederike said, "Have a coffee and watch your soul while you are waiting for your characters to do the work."

Again, an all too wise response to my needlessly worrisome writing self. At that point, I was asking myself what characters are speaking to me. Do I even have any? I was never planning on being a fiction writer. But is that what she meant, and does fiction versus nonfiction make any difference here?

In the midst of my brain working through this idea, my ears were half-listening to my car radio, which was faithfully playing NPR's All Things Considered. The host was interviewing a writer that just published a new novel. What was his inspiration and theme behind the book, she asked? I was suddenly all ears.

The writer explained that his work centered around the belief that home is not always where we are most welcome or a place that we can take refuge from a misunderstanding world. What happens to people who live with that discord?

For reasons I cannot explain, his description of pulling together his ideas into a novel pulled together my own disjointed ideas about what it means to write.

I've been fighting for a long time the idea that I should write fiction. It seems to me that any attempt I've made is not literary, but a deep-seeded and irresistible need to reconcile misunderstandings in my life - people, experiences, memories, social, political and religious issues. Every version of my fiction has been some attempt to tie those things together so that I can make sense of them, or remove them from myself. Like Dumbledore's Penseive, my writing extracts those things that will not rest within myself until they've poured out of me onto the page in black and white, where I can examine every detail. (Kudos to J.K. Rowling for that concept. I wonder if she ever thought about that in terms of her own writing experience?)

This isn't right, I tell myself. Great writers don't turn their lives into fiction for a good story. There's always that speculation that something within their works - a character or a scene or a setting is a fictionalized, dramatized version of something real to the author. But many authors would, and have, denied those theories outright. And then the critics and readers idolize them: "He's just that genius that the work is entirely fictional!"

Underneath the guise of literary genius, every good piece of writing has soul, and what is soul but personality, your collection of beliefs, experiences, passions, and talents that are not quite like anyone else's?

This is what I'm not going to fight anymore: you, dear readers, friends, loves of my life (and people I might not necessarily get along with) are the interesting characters that fill my thoughts and speak to me. Experiences and memories, you are a part of who I am. I am passionate about you. I am inspired by you. I know you and you know me. You drive me to words. Black, white, gray, and every color and shade in between. You speak to my soul, and I'm listening, truly listening now.

After all, life is stranger than fiction, right? So don't be surprised if some version of you lies within my words. I won't be surprised, anymore. I may not pen the great American novel any time soon, or ever, but this is what I know.

I won't go against the grain anymore, for you are ingrained in me.

When everything seems upside down...

The best conversations happen like this: 

Friend 1 : Would everything and everyone stop being a pain in the ass so I can stop freaking out?!

Friend 2 : Hey! Want me to get drunk on my lunch hour or eat a whole wheel of cheese...?

Friend 1 : I'm sorry? What?

Friend 2 : I was trying to be funny and cheer you up...

Friend 1 : Oh! [laughs.] Well then, please by all means get drunk on your lunch hour or eat a whole wheel of cheese. But can you swing by and pick me up first so we can do it together?* [laughs, then falls into silence again.] I'm sorry, I'm just upset about everything going on.

Friend 2 : I know. I'm here for you. What's up?

Friend 1 : Well, you know, between all the different people in my life who are in trouble and sick and hurting, plus the fact that I'm flat broke most of the time, I feel like I'm constantly fighting to keep my head above water. One minute I feel fine, the next, I feel like crying in a corner.

Friend 2 : Aww, my love! It's going to be okay. Deep breaths. And if you need to cry, do it. It helps sometimes. I love you and I know things will lighten up.

Friend 1 : Anyway, I know half this stuff is out of my control. I just hate that people don't make better decisions and that I am the one who worries about it. Thank you for being supportive. I love you.

Friend 2 : It's my pleasure, love.

Friend 1 : Thanks for cheering me up! Everything okay with you?

Friend 2 : Same old stuff, different day.

Friend 1 : True that. Well, you know I'm here whenever you're ready for a freak out session. Because, you know, sometimes that happens as we both know all too well...

Friend 2 : Heck yes we do. Lovelovelove!

And the really best part? Depending on the day, you may be either Friend 1 or Friend 2, but it's still the same conversation, the same amount of love. Thank you.

*Sidenote: I do not advocate drinking on the lunch hour.... or eating a whole wheel of cheese, for that matter. Just in case you were wondering.

Will Facebook Let Us Say Goodbye?

A friend of mine deleted her Facebook profile this week. It was rather sudden, although she did message me to ask for my other contact information before doing so, which makes it slightly less of a shock. I don't know why she did it, although I am curious and... sad. Really sad. Surprisingly sad and taken off guard. And silly - am I really mourning the loss of a friend... because she deleted her Facebook? She didn't die. She didn't tell me I would never see or hear from her again. For goodness sakes! She's still online. She still has a phone. She's still in my world... in a sense.

And, to be clear, it's not any of my business why she did it.

But without Facebook to connect us, I won't get to "see" her whenever I want. Or write on her wall to tell her "I love you and I was thinking about you today." Yes, of course I could email that same message. But to me, emailing has always felt like I'm sending something out into a vast void, something like a message in a bottle, and I don't know if it'll ever be opened or even reach the shore. There's no way to know the recipient saw it if they choose not to respond.

But Facebook. Facebook is different, although I can't entirely articulate it. Is it the visual aid of a person's profile picture that gives us that similar sense of direct contact that we feel when we've talked face-to-face? Is it the sense of community that we get from being able to give and receive along with hundreds of other people? Or is it the comfort we find in bearing witness to others' lives on some level, even if we don't converse daily? We still get to see their wedding pictures, their new-baby pictures, or their rant session when something has ticked them off enough to write it in their status, or the inside joke that they write on their best friend/sibling/parent/co-worker's wall... we even get to see where they've gone for dinner if they use Facebook's new Places feature. I'm tempted to leave out the part about witnessing their FarmVille obsessions, but it says a lot about how productive they are with their time.

In one sense, all of these features seem to give us a more direct and inclusive connection than communicating via telephone, email, letters, or other social media like Twitter, MySpace, etc. Even blogs can be more limiting than Facebook depending on the writer's purpose for the blog.

On the other hand, I suspect that Facebook makes us feel closer to a person than we actually are. We think we're keeping tabs on people, but we don't actually bear witness to their daily lives. What often results is a deeply misplaced sense of entitlement, an expectation of obligation and responsibility to participate, and it isn't real. The truth: they don't have to share.

And some don't. I realize that Facebook users are not all equal in the amount of time they spend using it or the quality of their engagement. Some feel it is a colossal waste of time, which I certainly respect. Facebook is indeed a portal for people to escape productivity. I just can't bring myself to pull the plug. I'd miss everyone too much. I'd miss other things, too - invites to events, seeing people celebrate major life experiences, the chance to find inspiring artists, writers, and businesses. I'd even miss major news headlines. And according to my approximations, about 15-20 of my average 25 readers on this blog are friends and family who I am connected with solely on Facebook.

Is that why I was so... uncomfortable with the idea that my friend disconnected? Is that why I'm so uncomfortable with the idea of disconnecting myself?

I stared at her message and thought to myself, "But... you don't want to share your life with us anymore? You just got married! Don't you want to leave those pictures up there for everyone to see and admire? Don't you want to be able to write on my wall and vice-versa whenever we're feeling nostalgic?" I'm saddened when people choose to stop sharing.

And here's another thought: In another era, I might have met this girl and traveled with her just as we did for 3 months, and then when we each went home we might have written letters. Or we might not have written letters. In the time before the internet and social media existed, we would have missed each other, but I might not feel so ill-equipped to accept the fact that I may never see her again, in a real or virtual sense. I wouldn't have been able to miss something that wasn't there: the constant connection we have in the digital era.

Now that I've graduated from college, there are many friends and peers and professors that I still feel connected to, despite the fact that I may go several years or a whole lifetime without seeing them face-to-face. I have the added experience of living states away from my family for the last 5 years. Facebook has been a good way to keep the family together, to allow me to keep my own connections rather than waiting for news to travel through the grapevine.

This is the internet's purpose: to keep us always connected. Through social networks, the once unfortunate reality of leaving people behind or losing touch as we move from one phase of life to the next is no longer inevitable. Up to this point I had regarded this as a good thing. However, I'm questioning it now.

I mean, is it a good thing that I'm still connected with all but one of my ex-boyfriends? Is it a good thing that the curiosity of knowing what's going on with 75% of the people we've met in our lives has almost become what we would articulate as a "need"?

What if what we really need is the ability to let go? What if we need the ability to accept that we may never see or hear from someone again, even if they're not dead? And if we do need that ability to disconnect from one another, then Facebook and social media have most certainly had an impact on us.

So here is what I'm really concerned about:

What if Facebook, social media - the world wide web - have compromised our ability to say goodbye?