Make Room
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 01:59PM My freshman year college roommate walks into a bar.
There is no punchline; just a figurative and unexpected punch in the head. She has come to the bar with a friend who is there to see the friend I was there to see, one of those circumstances that requires multiple complicated pronouns to explain. In between squeals of surprised delight, I tell her about the strange and sudden influx of people I know, visitors from all corners of the earth, the sudden "I'm here! Let's have brunch" calls, family gatherings, upcoming ocean-spanning journeys to see sister, inlaws, far-off friends.
All of my favorite people, in one place, at one time, converging.
"And then you show up here, tonight, out of the blue."
I shake her by the shoulders, an alternative to pinching myself.
"Why are all of the people I know and love suddenly coming to see me?"
I stare at her earnestly.
"Am I dying?"
* * *
When I was eighteen and still believed in Jack Kerouac's brand of Buddhism, I thought it was my purpose in life to meet everyone who walked the earth. I'd approach strangers in the street, strangers who looked interesting, approachable, sane. I'd start up conversations on trains and in the lines for the bathroom at concerts. Exchange numbers and make plans for coffee.
Then social networking sites started to count the people I know for me, these people I made erstwhile coffee plans with, totting up the collection of faces and names that seep out of my past. Number 462, third grade classmate, now married to a deer hunter: "Remember me?" Countless roommates who were once strangers, relatives discovering technology, ex-boyfriends who were in bands, the girl I once shared a desk with in a Latvian school.
And then, because you live in New York, they all come to visit at once.
The calendar becomes a string of the initials of out-of-town arrivals: MB, MI, CK, AM, DG, MM, LM, CB, JG, SW, AC...
You lay out clean sheets for the ones who are coming to stay, send texts to the ones who are waiting for you in a bar in Brooklyn. You dance—feet squishing in shoes wet from the rain—with someone you see once a year when a mutual friend comes into town. You say things like "what are you UP to?" and "how was ChiCAgo?" in a tone of voice you hardly recognize in yourself. Your "long time no see" voice. You eat out at restaurants, spend money on cabs. You arrive home past midnight already with plans to meet someone else tomorrow, kiss your husband goodnight, promise him you'll have alone time together soon.
There's a bruise forming just under my shoulderblade on my right side. I felt it ache this morning in the shower; I decided it's a casualty of all this hugging. Throwing my arms around my collection of visitors. The endless stream of far-off people, flowing through town like the Hudson, here for a night.
When did my world get so big.
Suddenly it just feels so full. All of my favorite people crowding into a shrinking space; there's less room for conversation, less time to grab a beer. You assemble everyone together at the same time, plans skewing towards large gatherings. You're choked with emotion from the sight of everyone squeezed together on one bench posing for a picture on a cool New York night, but no time to tell everyone that this is how you feel. No room for any emotion. You consider putting out a sign: No Vacancy for Friendships.
And isn't that just sad.
But then you spend half an hour at one of these gatherings talking to a friend of a friend, a photographer with wanderlust who talks about the importance of a room of one's own, and you get halfway through discussing love and relationships before you realize that she's just a really cool person, someone who for that brief moment made your world feel more full. A fullness you don't mind at all.
Squeeze in, you say. You switch off the No light in the Vacancy sign. And everyone makes room. Because those who are already there are kind and sharing and will all get along with each other; that's why you're friends with them in the first place.
And, yes, I'm dying, we all are (aaarrrrgh, nooooo…). But up to that moment when our light gets switched off, we continue to make room, turn strangers into friends, gather around us the people who will enrich our lives and make the world feel overwhelmingly and excitingly full, to the point of bursting.
That said, if you're coming through town in the next week or so, for the sake of my own sanity I'm not here.
© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.
Reader Comments (4)
I'm too introverted to have that full of a social calendar. Church once a week is about all I can manage without stressing (not that I don't do other things). But we've moved to Xenia where life is slower - right about my speed. And convincing anyone to visit me here is a pretty tall order. Which is FINE by me.
I'm probably missing out, aren't I?
Sometimes you miss out, but at least this way YOU get to do the visiting. J and I keep joking about moving to southern Ohio and having a guest bedroom/bathroom that we'll fill with little soaps, only for them to gather dust waiting for visitors. I like to think the ones who really do love you will swing by once in a blue moon to blow the dust off the little soaps for you.
I am dying...to see you.
I will use your little soaps...