Spring is always full. Somehow it’s already the last quarter of the school year and time for short sleeves and not being able to breathe through my nose. I ordered my first iced coffee of the year a couple of weeks ago. It’s been over two years since I’ve been able to drink coffee at all. Maybe we lose things temporarily so we can be fully grateful for them later. (Like walking without a knee brace. And finally being able to workout in a gym again.)
A few weeks ago, I coerced a friend into coming to teach my classes poetry. I told him he would make me cooler by association and offered him fancy cheese. (It worked a little too well, as I think my students like him better than they like me. Justifiably so.) In the grocery store, he told me that friends from grad school only exist for him in New York, not in reality. But here we are, he said, walking around a regular grocery store, like regular people.
I remember the weirdness of first trying to place people outside the context in which they existed for me. Friends from home visiting me at college, visiting college friends after graduation, meeting people now in the places they’ve scattered. For me there was always the worry that the relationship would be different if the setting changed. Sometimes they were different. But it’s easy to tell when a friendship exists because of proximity or convenience and when it’s made of stronger stuff.
I started last week with a virus that caused me to miss work and lie on my floor with my muscles on fire, eating soup for every meal. I worried I’d have to delay my spring break trip, but my last night with fever was the night before I left. Again with the thankfulness. I drove to Knoxville to catch a bus to DC then a train to New York. Everyone thought I was crazy for taking a bus, but really, the lack of security lines, anxiety, million dollar parking, claustrophobia, and pressurized air made it worth it. I had a skylight, a second floor view, gas station snacks, and two seats to myself, and what more can you ask for? And if given the option, I don’t know why anyone would ever travel any other way but by train.
On my first night in New York, eleven of us feasted in my old apartment (still my roommate’s apartment), and it felt like the last twelve months hadn’t changed anything. I wondered for a minute if I should have stayed in New York. If I should have spent another year trying to turn my manuscript into something I know what to do with instead of a pile of intimidating pages on my bookshelf. I could have tried to teach at Columbia and tutored to pay rent. I could have had dinner parties and joined a friend’s writing workshop and gone to readings every week and splurged on Levain cookies and weekend bus rides to DC and Boston and Providence. I could have walked with all of my friends at graduation.
But I don’t regret graduating earlier, and I’m grateful for that, too. Because as much as I miss all of them, I knew it would feel like I was treading water I stayed, and instead I get to be part of that tiny fraction of people who wakes up every day and goes to work excited to be there.
I filled Easter and the next few days in New York with coffee visits, dinner visits, and the food I’ve craved for ten months (Silver Moon gluten free blueberry muffin, I dream of you still), and then I told my old apartment goodbye. Sophie will move out at the end of May, and that was the last time we’d all be there together before everyone scatters again. My number of cities to visit will grow.
I took the bus back to DC and spent a couple of days exploring and visiting older friends who’ve know me since I was a silent, nervous 18-year-old who had a hard time speaking to strangers, had barely been outside of Mississippi, and had never tried hummus (Or Greek yogurt. Or bagels.). We’ve come a long way, guys. (Why did you talk to me back then?) I biked around the Tidal Basin and National Mall on a bike a foot too tall for me, saw the cherry blossoms, visited Bei Bei the baby panda at the zoo, and walked a million miles. I used a friend’s guest pass to workout in a gym that supplied me with a chilled eucalyptus-scented towel (which alone probably costs more than a month’s membership at my regular gym). I feasted with people who still feel like a second family.
My students think I have only have two friends, because they’ve seen one and heard another’s name. When I told them I had this suspicion, one of them said, “No, Ms. Smith, we saw a picture of you with three people. So you must have three friends.” I fear they think I imagined the others. I’m glad I didn’t imagine the others. (Students, if any of you are creeping on here, I didn’t imagine the others.) I’m thankful for friends who travel to sit in my living room floor telling stories and eating pretzels until way past bedtime. And for former roommates who still feel like roommates even when we live in different time zones. And for friends who teach me how to bench press without even making fun of me (audibly).
Ten days and 34 hours on the road later, I made it back home. I thought about grading papers, but I ate a dark chocolate bunny instead, because I know about priorities.
