Marie and I – The story of a friendship

This is a story about two girls who met in a bookstore and started a friendship. It’s a story about how I met my very special friend, Marie. Looking back, I smile and realize that it was the best place to find each other: among the books we both like so much. It’s a feel-good story, the kind of story that you never want to end.

I wrote this for another special person in my life. Once it was out, I felt I had to share it here. I hope you enjoy. It’s my first piece of writing that I actually took some time to edit.

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Marie and I

by Ada Ireland

 

It’s late in the evening and I’m at Barnes & Noble again. It’s quiet in here tonight, just the way I like it. I’m sitting on the floor in the kids’ section with one book on my lap and several more spread around me. They say that people who overfill their dinner plates have eyes bigger than their stomachs. For myself, it’s my reading time that couldn’t be as big as my eyes. I never fail to bring too many books back here. Sometimes it gets messy.

It’s not just the area around me that looks untidy. I’m a bit of a mess myself. My bike riding leggings are covered with a faint smatter of dried mud. Even my regular, monochromatic, layered tops have bits of mud on them . That’s what I get from riding on wet roads on a bike that doesn’t have fenders.  I stopped caring a long time ago about how I look after a bike ride though. No clothes could ever look as good as a bike ride feels. Not even the impeccably clean, high fashion ones.

My dirty, worn out backpack is right next to me. I have hibiscus tea and a snack within easy reach also. I probably look like a homeless person taking some time away from life and enjoying the temporary shelter of a warm store and the freedom of escaping into made up worlds. It’s a perfect way to spend an evening.

I look up from my book and see Faith, my oldest daughter, sitting in her chair, eating popcorn, and reading. She always sits by herself and immerses herself completely in whatever book she’s reading as soon as we get to the bookstore. She’s oblivious to anything that goes on around her. I’m in awe of her ability to focus on just one thing at a time. Sometimes she reads for hours. Sometimes she looks at bugs for hours. Sometimes she watches TV for hours. That is not something I’m in awe of. But I try not to interfere with it since she’s limited to watching TV only on Fridays anyway.

Where did all these thoughts come from? My mind is all over the place as usual. No, I definitely don’t have Faith’s focus.

I keep looking around me. Corrine, my middle daughter, is on the floor, a few feet away from me. She’s on her belly, legs bent at her knees, moving them up and down in a gentle rhythm. She’s drawing doodles in her notebook and listening to the dark haired young woman read. And finally there’s Grace, my youngest: she’s sitting on the floor also, Indian style, leaning comfortably against the reading lady, her head resting on the woman’s arm. On the lady’s other side there’s an even younger child mirroring Grace’s pose.

I look at them and can’t help thinking the little group makes such a beautiful picture:  a young mother reading to her daughters who are completely captivated by her slightly raspy, very soothing voice.

Of course I already know that’s not really what I’m looking at. Grace and Corrine are my own daughters. I don’t even know the names of the reading lady and her little daughter, yet I feel that part of my soul has known them forever.

I’ve witnessed this scene many times these past few months. During all this time, I talked to the young woman only once: the first time I saw my Grace laying her head on the lady’s arm. I went to apologize. She smiled and reassured me that everything was OK. She loved reading to the girls. I knew she really meant it. There was no reason for me to intrude. I left Grace alone and went back to my reading.

Other than that we’ve only said “Hi”, “Bye”, and “I’m sure we’ll be seeing you around next time.”

Tonight is different. She’s done reading and comes to sit down on the floor in front of me. She doesn’t spare a second glance for my messy outfit or the several books around me. She reaches out to shake my hand. “I’m Marie,” she says. “Thank you for letting me read to the girls. They are always so good. They’re really sweet.”

I don’t usually notice people’s clothes or physical features but she stands out like a bouquet of vibrant flowers  ‘obtained from an obliging field’ among carefully crafted flower arrangements ‘you can get from the hothouse’.

She wears a colorful, long, flowing skirt and a nice fitted top. Her long, dark hair is down as usual. If I had to use just one word to describe her it would be “hippie”. If I had two words, I would use “kind spirit”.

There’s something unique about her voice . It has that vaguely raspy, throaty quality that makes it stand out. It is soft and clear also. It would take me a few conversations to notice a little quirk that still makes me smile: her speech is unrushed, soothing, very much like a slow dance, but it has occasional “breaks” and “ups”. Almost as if there were ellipses and question marks in the middle of her sentences. How does she manage to do that and still sound so good? I don’t overanalyze it. I just enjoy it now.

I reach out and our hands meet in a firm, warm handshake. “I’m Ada,” I tell her. “Thank you for reading to them. They love listening to you and playing with your daughter. They’re really not that good. They’re little monsters in adorable packages. You know how that is.”

She laughs and, like everything else about her, it’s a genuine laughter. Quiet but whole hearted. She doesn’t contradict or correct me on the “little monsters” statement. She already knows I’m joking.

We start talking about kids. About homeschooling. About books. And then we end with the usual, “Bye. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you around next time.”

Only this “next time” marks the beginning of a new routine. Marie reads to the girls. I read to myself. Then we talk.

Sometimes she tells me about Ayurvedic medicine. I love learning about natural health so I have no trouble listening to her. Sometimes she tells me about chakras, and balancing one’s energy field, and the sacred. Those are things I don’t believe in, not the way she does anyway, but I’m fascinated by her passion. She doesn’t expect to convince me of anything or to change my mind. She doesn’t expect me to agree with her. She’s just sharing something with me. And I have no trouble listening to her.

Months go by and we hardly ever vary from our routine. Today she tells me that she spent two hours at the zoo, watching the gorillas with Summer, her daughter, studying them, and trying to communicate with them. It’s the first time she actually seems embarrassed by what she’s telling me.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” she asks me.

I smile. “Yes, to me it is. I couldn’t watch a gorilla for more than a few minutes. But Faith would love your story. She would love watching gorillas for hours at a time too. I’m sure she would move in with them if she could.”

That gets her laughing and gets her talking about gorillas again. And again, I have no trouble listening to her. There’s something fascinating about people who talk of things they love. When she’s done talking I go back to reading my book. I can’t help thinking that I really don’t care about gorillas any more than I did fifteen minutes ago, but I’m sure I’ll be looking at them differently the next time I’ll be at the zoo, if only for a few minutes at the most.

Another day, another conversation we have at Barnes & Noble.

“Just before he died, Gandhi only had five things left in his possession,” she says. She tells me what those things were and we talk about minimalism, about our shared dislike for shopping, about consumerism. We are alike in our beliefs on this topic so there’s no stopping us now. Two little tree hugging freaks excited to be talking about simple living and about living as close to nature as possible … oh, and about moving to Texas or Arizona because it’s always warm there and you can have your own farm, live off your land, and eat fresh, organic food you grow yourself.  We could get one of those super tiny homes also, no larger than five hundred square feet, and move in together.

My husband looks at us like we are crazy. He loves huge mansions and luxurious living. The only thing he wants to know about farms is how to avoid them. Actually, that’s not true. I’m exaggerating. He doesn’t mind farms … as long as he can avoid them. It makes for an interesting dynamic: the minimalist wife and the sophisticated tastes husband.

The look on Marie’s husband’s face is harder to decipher: does he think we’re harmless, crazy people, or does he think we’re serious enough (and crazy enough) to pick up and go raise chickens, goats, and some gorillas too. I really can’t tell. He’s simple enough in his tastes though to make me think he might be willing to leave civilization behind and see what nature has to offer.

It doesn’t matter what our husbands think though. We go on with our excited, happy chatter. Dreaming together is a lot of fun. Our daughters finally make us snap out of it. It’s time to go home. We both stand up at the same time. Without any hesitation, Marie steps right in front of me and hugs me. I’m surprised by it. Not only because I hadn’t expected it, but because she has the strongest hug ever. I’m not kidding. Here is this beautiful, graceful woman who’s even tinier than tiny ol’ me, and she gives me a veritable bear hug. That’s Marie though. She puts her heart into what she does. I hug her back strongly enough to let her know how much I care.

Months later, I remember our conversation about Gandhi. I can’t remember what the five things were though. I only recall three. I text her to see if she could help. She texts back, “Unfortunately I only remember two: he had a pen and a book. I can’t remember the other three now. I read it in a book, not on the internet so it’s not easy to find out. […]Tell me if you figure it out though. It will bother me now. *smiley face*”

I text her back. “The things I remembered were his robe, and the two food bowls (his and his wife’s). Together we got the five. We complete each other *big smiley face*”

She texts back later. “LOL I know. We’re lucky to have found each other.”

I look at my phone and smile. I don’t have to see her face to know she really means it. This is Marie. She’s one of the parts of me I never really knew was missing. And I’m very lucky to have found her.

 

P.S. While I was looking online for pictures about friendship, I came across these two and they made me LOL. (I know Marie likes to use that abbreviation  in her texts). So these are for you, my dear friend. I know they’ll make you LOL too.