I wonder how we became friends. Not, I mean, how we met. I probably remember that. Less likely that I can point to the moment, or the time where we crossed that ineffable border from knowing each other to being friends. But, I realize I want to, and that I think it is important and meaningful.

Like falling in love, though it happens gradually, there is usually also a moment where it strikes like lightning, that this is now so; true and without question.
I realized this while mulling it over this morning, just how it was that the godmother of my child and I made that transition. I knew in the more general sense; we met on the speech team my first year of college. We weren’t  debate partners and so we didn’t initially spend that much time together. We were in the same orbit, but moving at different speeds and in different trajectories.

After consulting her, we decided it was probably when, at a team dinner, I announced that I wanted to go to the beach and she and her then boyfriend were game for taking off to do this, even though it was already 10 pm. We loaded into the decrepit  VW Bug he was driving and rumbled off to Cannon Beach. The moon was fullish and low and orangey. We lay there on the sand together amusing each other, until about 2 am when I heard a very unfortunate rumbling coming from my midsection. Fucking Montage. I hate that place.

It is no small thing to wander through Seaside at 2am with someone you don’t know all that well desperately searching for facilities. The security guard at the Shilo Inn was sympathetic and let me scamper by at top speed.

When I came back to the car there was some fear that I would be upset to discover that it wouldn’t start, and needed a push. You see, they didn’t know me well enough at the time to know that I come from a long line of finicky cars with all manner of ailments, and that push starting was old hat to this girl.

It is my stated belief that you cannot help but bond with someone after both your car and your bowels fail you in the same evening together.

And now that I think about it, I suppose I can say with surety when I claimed certain other people for my own; Lyza and Emma came to Kah-Nee-Tah with me. Getting drunk in a tee-pee with someone may be unconventional in this day and age, but it was effective in this case. Jeanne spent my birthday with me on a fruitless but nevertheless totally enjoyable quest for hot springs into the gorge. I dragged Hilary to a strip club. Pretty sure I got Catherine that way too…

I like to gather people in, and I like to think about how it was done. To turn over in my mind the wondering about what brought us into the emotional proximity we now enjoy. The work of time is taken to account, but to acknowledge as well the undeniable elements of circumstance that drew us together, that bound us to each other, at last.

If you remember, or have a theory, do tell…