A post that is not about the dire circumstances we find ourself in...

Mostly...

This is a story about connections that go back to different times and places.
This is also a story of serendipity, of finding connections in large impersonal places.

This is a story about a friend’s book that she wrote and drew and published.

I hardly know where to start. There are so many connections that brought me to this conjunction of art and books and friends and music and gardening.

So first: a funny story about noticing things in airports. A little over a month ago I took a trip to the east coast to see my friend I met my first year of college. We were on the same floor in the dorms, but we were also in the art department together. After *mumble mumble* years, we are still friends, still painting, still talking on the phone and visiting when we can. It was also a trip to go hang with the Panda Sisterhood.

so…

Here I am at the airport waiting to board, and I look over and I see a woman reading an illustrated book.

Now hold onto that thought…

When I moved to Seattle to attend graduate school in painting, I knew a couple people in Seattle, but not many. But school is a good place to meet people when you are a young person. One of my friends was interested in contra dancing and old time music. We all got in the habit of playing music and going to dances. I met lots of people that way, some became close friends, some just peripheral in that way groups tend to form and cluster.

Coincidence 1: I met my friend Barbara when I was working in a restaurant post grad school. We discovered we went to the same art school in Philadelphia at the same time, but didn’t know each other then. She was part of the old time music and folk dance community. One of her friends was a banjo player, Molly. I was never close friends with Molly, but Barbara was and would sometimes share what she (Molly) was up to.

Barbara recently told me that Molly was about to publish an illustrated memoir about gardening and had some questions about independent publishing, and could she contact me? Sure, I said. We had a couple exchanges and she sent me a copy of her book once she had published it.

So…back to the airport…

I hadn’t finished reading Molly’s book because it came right before I was leaving on this trip, but when I looked over this woman’s shoulder the book looked really familiar. I decided to ask her what it was, and she showed me and it was Molly’s book. Which meant that this person knew the same person that I knew, even though we had no connection between the two of us. How weird is that?

We chatted for a bit about how and where we each knew Molly, and a few other people we knew in common. We were about to get on the same flight flying all the way across the country, chatted a bit, boarded the plane and probably will not meet again.

I think that so much of life is about the connections we make as we stumble through all the ups and downs that the world shoves at us. During the pandemic and now as we enter this time of uncertainty, I spent a lot of time out in my garden. We have a lot in common in how we approach our gardens. It’s not so much about getting a particular job done (usually) but just spending time getting dirty and watching things grow, moving plant matter from one spot to another, endlessly. It will never be done.

I hope you will want to get a copy of Molly’s book. You can get it at her website, HERE. It gave me a little peace in these trying times. It made me want to get out in the garden. I love winter gardening. Cutting things back, getting them ready for the coming of light and coming of spring. I don’t know if I have enough hope. If I am to find it, I think it will be found in the garden, and among my friends.

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