Not "old" old. But in a way it does seem like a lifetime ago that we shamelessly used our then-preschool-age daughters as excuses to get together and talk for three or four hours. ("The girls need to play together!" Honestly, not half as much as we needed to talk to each other. It's really lucky the girls got along.)
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What will I call you, Good Friend? You're strong, practical, and self-determined. I've always admired your clarity. You have excellent judgment about people. You know I don't choose any kind of professional (therapist, realtor, you name it) without asking for your recommendation.
Your real name, simple and classic, reflects all this. What would be a good echo?
Jane. No, too old-fashioned and plain. Your real name, although strong like that, is less limited.
May: too soft.
Alice: too stuffy.
Patricia: right idea, but not quite.
Louisa? It's not a name I like, actually, but it has deep classical roots and a good mix of assertiveness and poetry. It fits you conceptually, even though no one who knows you would associate it with you.
Okay, I'm going to call you Louisa. If you hate it, let me know, and I'll change it to whatever you like. But since you're probably not prepared to discuss pseudonyms at 6:39 AM and I have to get this done now, we'll just go with Louisa.
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So: I heard from Louisa this morning. She was pointing me to another friend's blog. He moved away last year, and we miss him.
Louisa and I grew up in Southern New England but only met when we moved to the midwest. In its own quiet way, New England is as distinctive a region as the South; it does mark people, though subtly. (ED.: I am not talking about the crusty Maine lobster fisherman of stereotype. I'm talking about suburbanized Southern New Englanders whose origins will not be obvious if you spot them in O'Hare, but who do nonetheless have deep and particular traces in them.) You tend to be somewhat reserved with strangers. If there's going to be friendliness or chattiness, the other person will have to initiate it. You tend to come off as hurried during shopping and blank or impersonal during commercial transactions. A New Englander would call that 'focused' and 'appropriate and respectful.' You tend not to be too sentimental. However friendly you may be, you do not actually *make friends* easily. That takes time. With a real New Englander, there's always a barrier to cross. If a New Englander accepts you as a friend, you'll know it; there will be a moment when they really look at you or the air shifts around the two of you.
It was nice to have all this background stuff in common with Louisa. Other than that, we are, of course, completely different.
Louisa told me once that her childhood house had raspberry bushes outside. In the summer she could go out and eat as much as she wanted. Right off the stem. None of this $3.49 per quarter-pint at the supermarket stuff, and the bottom ones are pulped. Ripe raspberries, whole and perfect and free, were her birthright.
The question is whether it could balance in any way what she was denied at the same time.
