Last week, my husband Jed and I were at a dinner honoring Dune Thorne, Congresswoman Sarah McBride, Kristen Caskey, Adrienne Warren and the Women’s Project Theater.
One of the questions that often shows up when you’re meeting new people is “how did you meet?”
“I wasn’t supposed to be there when I met Jed …” the story begins. My friend Lisa got mono, and so I got her all-expense-paid student trip to Israel — something like Birthright, but before Birthright,
I got to JFK airport, a little late, and rushing to the gate I saw this very cute guy in a yellow ski jacket. He was ignoring all the students jostling to meet one another with his head buried in the book Coma. I noticed him two more times on the plane, but couldn’t get his attention.
A few days into the trip, over breakfast, a new friend from Nashville introduced us. I was full of energy; he was so chill he was almost invisible – until Ellen called him over to meet me.
Later that morning, we stopped at a refugee resettlement camp outside Jerusalem. Our guide was describing in English how immigrants from Northern Africa stayed in this temporary housing for just a few months, until they were placed in apartments in communities near other people from the countries they came from.
A man bursts out from the tent we’re standing in front of and interrupts the tour guide, screaming, in Hebrew with a thick Moroccan accent, “Month after month, you bring bus loads of tourists here, and you tell them lies. We’ve been in this same tent for years, and you never move us … “
I looked up and Jed had his hand over his face and was looking down. We were the only two people in the group of over 100 students who understood what the Moroccan refugee was saying.
My brilliant editor and co-teacher Roxy wants me to add more about this relationship here! I promise I will tell more of this story in the coming weeks and months.
This week’s prompt is an invitation to recall the beginning of a relationship that almost didn’t happen:
- When was the first time you talked to this person?
- What was the first thing you noticed about their voice?
- What was something they said that you hadn’t heard before?
- What happened that reminded you of someone or something from your past?
- What changed after that first meeting?
- What would someone else have seen that suggested that change?
Don’t worry about answering all the questions. Just take one that inspires you and follow it for a few days … explore one sudden and important friendship, where it sprang up and what makes it endure.