The West Commences: Friends

It’s with a mixture of guilt and self-congratulation that I admit I did not go on today’s VOC hike. I haven’t missed one that I was home for since I joined the club. My list of excuses is too long and boring to get into, but suffice-it-to-say that I am happily at the laptop after enjoying a slow breakfast, a tall Korean/Canadian coffee and a read of ‘The Walrus’. In case you’re interested, the coffee is made by adding one of the individual cup tubes of dry instant coffee, powered milk and sugar that I became addicted to when I stayed with Jay and May in Korea to my usual morning café au lait. May insisted that I bring some home. In fact, she would have had me load my suitcase with them and a free set of glass food containers that came with the huge box she hadbought for me. When I am forced to go back to my sugar-free regime, I will regret not having done what she urged. For the moment, the little tube has sweetened an otherwise very grey and wet Vernon morning.

We have had so much rain that the roses are bent over with the weight of their wet flowers. Some of the flowers and even the buds are turning brown before they fully open. Last Monday as the ferry pulled into Tsawwassan there was a long, clear line way out from shore marking the edge of the muddy water flowing from the mouth of the swollen Fraser River and the clear dark waters beyond. By now, the Fraser is flooding in Chilliwack and elsewhere and we’re still getting rain. I was wakened at 11:44 pm last night by a rattle of thunder that gave me a start; I thought it was someone trying to get in the door. For the first time since I bought it, I reached for the can of wasp spray beside my bed that Marg convinced me to buy over a year ago. I wonder what its shelf life is. At least its presence gave me a moment’s calm during which I determined that what I had heard was thunder. Yesterday morning I biked with Mo and John to Armstrong for breakfast. I almost finked out on that too because it was wet and cloudy at 7:30 am and rain and thunder were predicted, but Mo was optimistic. I’m glad I let her convince me because the ride there was great, except that I’m out of biking shape and had to walk up one hill in spite of riding my new bike. After a big bacon and egg feast, we walked around the Armstrong market with our bikes and then headed back to the cars. Had we not wandered in the market, we might have missed the deluge, but as it was we got soaked and I walked up another hill, not a raging success, but I’m glad we got outside for something other than weed pulling because today looks like a complete insider. Thank goodness I’m only ½ way through Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. It’s a great story.

Writing of how Mo influenced me to my advantage yesterday makes me think of how all my life I have been lucky to find and careful to keep good friends. This has been on my mind since Paula and I were in a shop in China Town in Victoria on our last visit with my parents. Paula is a great shopper, and I, as usual, was happy to be with someone who is at ease in stores because then I don’t have to be my usual nervous self, worried that someone will ask me what I’m looking for. I’m unwilling to part with a dollar (I would even have said cent but the mint will soon not be printing them anymore). I’d rather leave the store than admit that I’m not looking for anything. I’m always convinced that there’s really nothing I want unless I’m shopping with a person like Paula. Then the pressure is off me; I wander untroubled and discover that there are great things to buy. I sometimes actually purchase something. I even talk with clerks. This time I joined Paula, who was buying a few rings as part of what she referred to as ‘shop therapy’, in a discussion with the exotic-looking woman who owned the store. She was an ex contemporary dancer and lifetime studier of astrology. She, Paula and her husband had just discovered that they were all Virgos. I was the outsider, a Gemini. She gave me a wary look and said that Gemini can be easily influenced and led astray. I instantly replied that I knew that and had always been careful about choosing the people I stayed close to because of it. I surprised myself by the rapidity and definitiveness of my response, although quick unconsidered responses are another of my characteristics. But I would never have put it that way before. I have thought about it since that encounter and continue to do so. The course of my life has in many ways been determined by a decision to either cultivate or not the friendship of certain people. I’ve spent 66 years honing this skill, and as I think about the friends I have, I consider myself nearer to being an expert in it than in anything else.