An old friend of mine from the Bay Area called me a few months ago, her niece was moving to Portland and she wanted to put us contact with each other.
Contact was made, life happened, this and that; anyway, it was this evening before Niece and I actually got together.
She’s a delightful young woman–out of the Peace Corps a few years back, interested in sustainability and plumbing, clever and creative.
At the beginning of our conversation, she asked, quite innocently, What brought you to Portland?
Which, of course, is an answer that can unpack into a whole lot of complicated directions… “writing…relationship(s)…poly (but not any more)…divorce…money…” Etc etc.
I mean, I have a couple of standard polite answers for people who are just making conversation. (Which are not untrue, just…incomplete.) But this wasn’t quite what was happening, I decided.
So I made a snap judgment and gave a brief-but-comprehensive answer. Which led to a GREAT discussion about all sorts of, you know, real things. It was marvelous. And now I have a potential new friend. Even if she’s nearly 20 years younger than me. 🙂 Nothing wrong with that!
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In other news, alas, no writing today, and not even any yoga. Miss H’s marvelous dinner last night was not received so well in the processing department; I feel fine now, but, yeah, rough start to the day, shall we say. And very tired right now. So I think I’ll turn in and start fresh tomorrow.