Imaginary coffee -- and a break for the magic hula hoop

I would love to tell you all that there have been lots of scribbles that just didn't make print in the blank space of time between the last post and this one, but sadly that is not the case. I've been writing more lately with notes on my phone (Is that even writing? There are words so I hope so.)

I take my notebook with me everywhere. I took it with me on a walk/ sit tonight when I went to one of our lakes but my pen didn't work. I thought about asking the fisherman for a pen because he was the only other person in sight but he looked so content so I didn't think he needed to be bothered.

There have been so many coffees, so many adventures lately, and for the moment, it's okay if there's not. It's okay for quiet and trees and water and ducks and no pens for writing and spending time seeing what's there. Because when I think nothing is happening or when I'm afraid I'll miss something, I'm yet again reminded moments are important in and of themselves. I don't always have to document all the things.

Why is this the thing I keep coming back to in my journey, even though I have dozens and dozens of stories to tell you?

I work in counseling, where the rule we live by is if you don't document it, it didn't happen. It's so true and yet so untrue.  These things we document, they did happen, of course, but no one else knows about them yet, I guess, and you can't prove them if you don't make notes. Document, document, document. That's what we learn along the way. Write it down.

Mix that with an already writer who likes to write things down anyway and this project should be easy-peasy. Just document all the fun, adventurous, out-of-the-ordinary, DAILY encounters, and your book will be written.

Why is it not that simple?

Because it's not about pounding out words just because.

I mean it is but it isn't.

Things don't have to be that complex, but when you're writing about people, I find they are sometimes. Interactions are organic, which is a beautiful thing, and life is sweet that way.

Maybe though, I am left wondering how to do all of them justice in this way.

I will try.

When I was starting this project, I skyped with Amy and she asked me about the process and the purpose of the story as a whole, and maybe this is part of it.

All we can do is try to put into words what we experience in life, knowing it's never quite the same the second or third or fourth time around.

Stories are important though. They can be a bridge from who we are to others and perhaps we all can remember the truth of our lives a little better that way.

Just like the pictures above that capture the moment from tonight, these words are the best I have to record what I've seen, who I've met.

~~~~~

My new neighbor has been a recent and surprising coffee! I surprised myself because normally I am open but I am more open with either strangers or people I know really well, not the in-between for some reason. The in-between, the daily-ness of knowing people can be hard, because you have to let them in.

I kind of realized right away my new neighbor would be one of those people. The moment I met her we had more than just a surface level conversation and I told her we ought to sit down and chat sometime. So she sat down right then and there on the stairs and said "why not now?"

Now is as good a time as any for coffee.

She named it, too.

We told her son that's what we were having when he came by, a teenager who was looking at two grown women on a stoop pretending to have coffee (I rarely ACTUALLY have coffee in these adventures).

It's an easy way to get to know someone, a shared love for fake, imaginary coffee.

That was last week. We've talked several times since then and we hope to walk sometime soon. She told me tonight it's so great having a neighbor who is a 'social worker' because apparently it is nice for talking and also entertaining, as I came home tonight with my magic hula hoop*. She liked that. Everyone needs a little fun in their lives. She said she's sure I'll be hula hooping it up on the grass before too long. Truth.

Neighbors are fun. They make wonderful coffee adventures.


*magic hula hoops are hula hoops that shake inside and where you can actually hula hoop for long periods of time. It's totally magic, but more on this later...