yes i said yes i will yes

i haven't blogged since thursday and it was starting to feel weird. i was hoping that i would have some time on friday to lay down some words for the momentous occasion of my best friend stephanie being blown out of the windy city in order to take a bite out of the big apple (had to be done!). alas, i have been so busy giving her a proper send off on friday and most of saturday that i didn't even get to write her a card to go with the present i made her. and i know how much stephanie loves a well written and thoughtful card, mainly because i have received many from her throughout the 7 (!!!!) years that i have known and loved her...and sometimes yelled at her ;), but always with love. i was sorting through my cards and notes and photos the other day, for a new apartment project that i have thought up (stay tuned for that one!) and came across so many of steph's postcards, birthday cards, notes and life’s marginalia collected during the four years we lived apart, me in new york and she in chicago (ironic i know) that i wondered how we had anything at all left to say to each other.

i met steph seven years ago when she literally landed on my doorstep. we were part of a group of foreign students living in a four-story dorm style apartment complex called trinity hall. it housed a virtual united nations of 20-somethings from south africa, the states, canada, sweden, england, spain, wales, and even the odd student from the west of ireland. we lived a lot like a big family. my flatmates and i often hosted champagne and pancakes breakfasts, hosted spontaneous afternoon tea and more than once even a knitting circle, cramming 20 or 30 into our small kitchen/living area to eat, drink and bask in the relative ease of student life. and all the while we were able to learn about other cultures and areas of academic study without really trying. my flatmate sarah and i would spend weekend nights knitting hats and scarves while discussing boys, food and her dissertation on the historical impact of knitting on cultures. seamus taught me what fry-tex was and i learned from my friend shane that not all military men are cut from the same tunnel-vision cloth as their commander in chief. i don't have the right words to explain how my year in ireland, in dublin and at trinity (where steph and i earned our matching degrees) shaped me. it all sounds trite and overwritten and flakey when i try to express the way the people and experiences, even how living in that flat changed me.

steph rang the door bell and was all gussied, done up for a night in dublin, i opened the door to my future and it was a fair-skinned freckled redhead. she and one of her roommates came to ask if a few of us wanted to go out that night. i said when are you leaving? she said on the next bus, which is in 3 minutes. i was in my pjs and thought well what a bitch she obviously doesn't want me to go out at all because i get ready quick, but not that quick. we laugh about that night. she told me she did want me to come out but that she didn't realize that it had gotten so late. a trait that i would understand as i got to know her. i passed on going out that night and i think the next time she invited me out too, because sometimes i like to play hard to get. but steph was relentless. she wanted me to be her friend, she told me later. i was flattered, but didn't see what the big deal was. i was no great shakes. sure i was fun, but i can be moody and morose, bitter and my honesty can, at times, be less than flattering. these are all things that steph would come to find out later. as for why she wanted to be friends with me then, you would have to ask her what she saw in me exactly.

but i can tell you a million reasons why i became friends with her.

i'll use the past tense, even though she remains today all of these things and more.

she was whip smart and interesting. we had fun. she was open and emotional and loved chocolate. she liked my room. she liked my movies and was always finding cool shit for us to do. she was feisty, sometimes even when the situation didn't warrant it. she could drink with me and try to keep up. she would drink beer with me, but preferred milkshakes. she never once judged me for being scared to do things, especially when it came to boys. she always encouraged often with warm hot chocolate and a story or two from her past. we both liked to watch sad movies while under warm covers in dark rooms when it was cold outside. she became a matchmaker for one time only and it was for me. she liked to talk about books and poetry. she never apologized for being smart, bookish and academically inclined. she never let me apologize for it either. she tried for an entire year to get me to read and love james joyce, never relenting. she never teased me for wanting to shop. she opened herself up without pretense to a relationship that scared her. she went with it and made it beautiful. she never wavered in the face of criticism, although she always bit back. she was fearless, weightless, beautiful because of it. a fighter that goes down punching, if ever at all.

they were halcyon days. heady with the promise of discovery...see it never works to try to write about it like that. together, in combination with two other close friends laurel and erin, we broke barriers, mended fences, started fires and extinguished them. we walked miles literally and figuratively. we drove through green lands looking for hidden treasures in the irish landscape, found love and lost it and found it again. explored castles and ring forts and scary mountaintop hostels. we discussed poetry and fashion, listened to music and had madcap barefoot drunken adventures through the streets of dublin. together we sat in an irish pub at 3 a.m. and watched janet jackson's nipple slip. together we were taught the words of swift, beckett, joyce and edgeworth. visited martello tower. spoke the words of steph's literary hero, molly bloom. we wrote and read and listened to eccentric old professors who knew everything and sometimes nothing. we ate curry chips at 4 a.m. and cried about missing family and friends. we learned how to love more openly and love at all. together we learned how to speak up for what we want, fight for it. later we would learn that maybe it wasn't worth fighting for but never let the other apologize for the effort. we were young and free, unbound by the history we had built for years in a home thousands of miles away. friends would visit, people would write and see pictures but they didn't know. they weren't there. they couldn't possibly understand.

we didn't know then what would become of us. sure some of us painted pictures. i started to sketch mine early on, it featured dublin and books, babies, gardens and my now ex-boyfriend. steph wanted to go back to the states, to the career path she had started. she drew in broader strokes, but at the heart of it was her wish to live in new york. she chose love first. and love brought her to chicago, when i reminded her of her new york lifescape she said i know, but for now this is where i’ll be. but she always knew she would get there eventually. and so did i.

steph was my first real editor. she would go through my academic papers with the zealousness reserved for those who love the written word. that is how i know she is good at what she does, because she loves it wholeheartedly. and when i gave up on my aspirations to write and edit because it was too tough to find a good job here, she never judged. she has held on to the dream. and i admire her for that. i also know that she will be successful in new york. and although she worries sometimes that the city will swallow her whole i know she'll have it wrapped around her finger within a year.

in nyc

when she first realized that this move was real and she was getting the job and we were once again going to live apart as we had done for four years after leaving dublin, i noted the irony that we had, in effect switched places. and i know that she feels at home here, and in the last two years has brought chicago to its collective knees with her mix of persuasion and panache, but it was never a permanent stop. just as dublin was just a waystation, so too was chicago. but she brought me here and for that i will be forever grateful. just as she had done with our friendship, so too had she made it impossible for me to say no to this great city. with guided tours and delicious meals, fine friends and well-stocked museums she wooed me here. it took four years, but i made the leap and survived. she told me the other night during our last sushi dinner as co-chicago residents that she thought i had been so graceful about my move and she didn't think she could do the same. she obviously forgot the weeks on end of sweats and unkempt hair. but nevertheless, she could never be anything but graceful, after all it is built into her name.

i often feel like i forget to tell my friends how much they mean to me. especially those closest to me. steph and i have gone through a lot of highs and lows, love and loss some at the hands of others and some at the hands of each other. but these are the things that shape us, that create the forms that move forward to carve out new future selves. and whether those selves are in the same city or not we are always with one another, connected by a shared experience… and the phone, and text, and bb messaging and facebook and this blog.

so steph this is just to say that i love you and good luck and slainte. and whenever you call, i promise to pick up. just remember the words of ms. bloom when you walk down the streets of that sometimes daunting city. yes i said yes i will yes. and it will be so.