Friday night my friend Lis and I went out on the town for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory followed by a play at the Guthrie. Dinner was delicious, and the play was full of tragic misunderstandings, mistaken or hidden identities, secrets and lies, witty humor, and rather raunchy comic relief--in other words, typical Shakespeare.
After the play, we went to the parking ramp where Lis had parked...and after wandering the various levels where nothing looked familiar for more than twenty minutes, we started to wonder if maybe the car had been stolen and if we should call the police. Fortunately, I spotted a guy with a name tag and clipboard and explained our situation. He looked at me, expressionless, and informed me there was another ramp a half a block over and we were mostly like parked there.
Oh.
Turns our the guy with the clipboard knew what he was talking about, and as soon as we spotted the car, we scrambled to turn the heater on full blast and warm up our frozen extremities.
Needless to say, this was not the first "adventure" Lis and I have been on together. In the more than fifteen years we've been friends, we've traveled abroad, been roommates and housemates, laughed ourselves silly, and chatted ourselves hoarse. We've puzzled over the strange ways of men and encouraged each other in our careers. I celebrated with Lis in the hospital when her beautiful daughter decided to arrive earlier than expected. And on my wedding day, Lis was right there with me when coffee spilled on my veil at the hair salon. (Fortunately, spillage on veils must happen frequently at the salon because one of the stylists knew just what to do!)
I have to go way back in time to remember when Lis and I first met. We were in the same French class my sophomore year of college, where Lis witnessed me rather skillfully averting the advances of the guy we later coined "French-class Brian" (we knew several Brians at the time), and though Lis and I didn't yet know each other well, we were both relieved to see a familiar face in the group of students who would spend a semester on an exchange program in England the following fall.
Our friendship really solidified during our semester abroad, where Lis, the bolder of us two, nudged my way-too-chicken 19-year-old-self toward countless new experiences. We shared many a stuffed-crust pizza and game of gin rummy, pub crawled like the best of them, took in theater in London, roamed the countryside of Cornwall, and thoroughly enjoyed spending time with our new friends--British, German, and American alike.
Back in the States, Lis, our friend Tam, and I rented a tiny house our senior year, where each of our bedrooms was about the size of a closet, and a mouse sometimes inhabited the silverware drawer. That year my parents were in Africa doing mission work; in their absence, I looked after my grandparents who lived about a half an hour from the university. It was a dark time for me, as my grandma's dementia and osteoporosis made in increasingly difficult for my grandpa to care for her, and when my grandpa's sister called and said my grandma needed to be in the nursing home, I was the one who had to make it happen. There were many evenings when I sat with my two wonderful housemates and cried, not really knowing what to do, and I've no doubt God placed these two incredible women in my life at just this time to help me through.
After graduation, I moved back to Minnesota, and Lis went to graduate school on the East Coast. Those years are fuzzy in my memory, but I remember that even after long stretches of time passed, Lis and I picked up our conversations like we'd never left off. When Lis moved to Minnesota not long after I returned home from China, I was thrilled. In the many years since then, both our lives have changed dramatically--some changes for the better and some not so much. Yet in the midst of the joys and challenges we find ourselves facing, our tea outings, lunches, birthday celebrations, and occasional excursions to the theater give us both a chance to unwind and enjoy the familiarity of a friendship as comfortable as a Saturday sweater. A rare gift indeed.
As we walked into the Guthrie on Friday, Lis commented that she could see the two of us as old ladies hobbling down the street with our canes and getting in the rush line to see Shakespeare at the Guthrie. Of course, we'd be sure to know which ramp we parked in. Or better yet, maybe we'd take a cab. Here's to many more adventures to come, Lis! You're a treasure!
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