Thursday, May 27: Pull me into your home at 1 AM after the bar. Make me tea and push one of your favorite books into my hands. Do you want this back? I ask, already certain I’ll love the words inside because you gave them to me. No, it’s yours, you answer. I respond simply: Can I hug you?
Wednesday, June 2: Fold me into your arms, squeeze. I don’t know your name because we met an hour ago but you sure know how to hug. We are brand new friends gathered around our favorite bartender on a Wednesday afternoon. We talk about food and gardens and friendship, life’s pleasures, and that’s when you say it. This might be too forward, but. You pause and I laugh. Would you like to come over soon? I say Yes, yes, we would love that. I just had the same thought.
Before we leave our bartender ventures around the bar to say goodbye. Lined up like dominoes we offer our bodies to each other, one after the other. The hugs are generous and we use two arms. No one hesitates in making up for the time we’ve lost. Our bartender’s hugs are as good as his cocktails. Tighter, I thought. Lift me in the air; let’s spin.
***
These are stories of reconnection in a newly vaccinated world. People are enclosing me in love, offering threads of relationship where they’d been severed. They’re giving time and attention straight from the heart. I didn’t know embracing a stranger could feel so good.
I received a message from another new friend: You are a gem. I adore you. I typed back, The feeling is mutual. Love letters set free by a year of disease.
***
The people who fill my life inspire me.
I want to be the kind of friend who beckons you into my home, feeds you, leaves muffins on your porch. I want to be a friend who shares holidays freely, beyond bloodlines and family names. I want to be a friend who revels in big moments with community, who invites you in, into the fold rather than hiding away in celebrations meant for two.
I want to share your holy moments. I want to feast on life—yours, then mine—I want to eat everyday meals together, concocted in minutes with odds and ends from my fridge. I want fancy meals too, prepared by stirring a pot for hours on end with great care. I want to spin webs of joy that glisten like an open door.
I want to love you more than the world thinks I should. I want to know how it’s going with your newborn—how you’re really feeling on no sleep. I can hold the baby while you shower; he seems fragile so I’m careful. Honestly I am fragile, too.
I want to understand you have my back, that in moments I wish my family would call the phone will ring and it’ll always be you. I want to tell you that I am not afraid to ride your waves of sorrow. I want to be too much and have you say it’s never enough.
I want to be your full-bandwidth friend, a stranger once said to me on the internet. We were both commenting on a thread about people prioritizing family, career, and romance over friendship. She gave me her email address so I sent a note. That person never wrote back but I want to be the kind of friend who follows through.
***
Saturday, May 8: I walk towards your stall to buy the last of this year’s candy-colored ranunculus, which you’ve grown with your own hands. We’re outside but I approach in a mask, never sure where people stand. You see me and smile, dipping your chin to one side. I’m vaccinated, do you want to hug? My arms opened before my mouth.
Wednesday, June 2: Thank you for squeezing me so tightly, I could’ve said to you, my new acquaintance at the bar. You would not have hugged me like that before a pandemic. But now we know not to waste a second. I have love to give. It’s yours, it’s yours.
Between you and me—
A few of my favorite friendships began with the phrase, “this might be too forward, but.” I know we must’ve survived a pandemic when my socially-reserved husband starts saying it. And he has.
It is not lost on me that today’s painting, chosen because it shows something of the human-to-human joy I’m describing this week, depicts a scene from the years following the last worldwide pandemic. Times may change but our need for connection never wavers.
As you may remember, my pandemic-sourdough-phase arrived ten months later than everyone else’s. My trouble-focusing-on-books phase showed up similarly—late to the party but here to get down. I finally listened to the soul-friend who’s been recommending Lydia Davis to me for a year, and I am pleased to say that her short stories have brought me back. Back to that page-turny feeling. Back to the magic of paper and ink. Back to standing in awe of entire worlds created by stringing sentences together. This time I am here to stay.
WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is written by Lauren Maxwell. If you enjoy this newsletter, please consider supporting it in some way. You can become a sponsor, click the heart, share online, or forward to a friend. It all helps!
"I want to love you more than the world thinks I should." Feelin this.
PS. Also love ranunculus BIG-TIME and want to see a photo. (Were they at your wedding? I associate them with it.) Color of what candy?