Ever cross paths with an old friend in an unusual way? This was a fun question for me to ponder as it came from this overarching story question in my new novel, Moon Over Edisto which will hit stores in February: What if your best friend from college and your father had an affair, broke up your family and started their own? And what if – decades later – this friend is on your doorstep long after your father is gone asking something huge of you on behalf of your half-siblings you’ve never come to know. Would you help her?
What I love about the idea of crossing paths in an odd way with an old friend is that it feels so very southern. Southerners are obsessed with making connections. It’s in their DNA. Not two minutes after you meet someone new in my neck of the woods, you have to ask, “So where are your people from?” Then you go down the list making every effort to work your way through those six degrees of separation from which you are surely linked to this fellow human being, no matter what city, state, region, ethnicity or country they are from. These questions range from the “Did you go to Clemson or Carolina? Alabama or Auburn? University of Texas or Texas A&M? to the broader “Do you favor coffee or tea?” “bbq or tofu?” “Chocolate or vanilla ice cream?” “Rice or hominy?”
Southerners insist they know you. Always. It’s kind of like a faith they have in the great tapestry of life, in the “It’s a small world after all.” And there’s no sense in arguing with them, no sense in trying to convince them that you are, in fact, a stranger. Just sit for a spell and let them work their way through history and regions until they find that link, that tie that seals your friendship and creates a kind of feeling of “Well, of course, we’ve practically known each other all along. We’re nearly kin if you go back far enough.” I moved a lot as a child so I am often running into old friends and making new connections with friends of friends. Add to that my college days in Virginia and my time as a young grown-up in Washington, DC and New York City, and I am always hoping to run into some long lost acquaintance on a busy street in Charleston or in an airport terminal somewhere.
When I thought about today’s question, undoubtedly one person came to mind. My friend, Meghan Russell. Meg and I met the first Monday after we both had graduated from college. Though she was from New York and I was from South Carolina, both of our parents were of the same mind: find immediate employment or else. And so we both took a job at Share Our Strength, a hunger relief organization in the crumbling old investment building on K Street in Washington, DC.
I can remember being terrified as I rode up the rickety old elevator in the one dress suit I owned – navy blue and from Talbots. I had my pumps on and my pearls and my little southern bob and I was hoping, hoping, hoping to make a good, professional impression.
I walked into the office to find everyone in jeans and was feeling like a goofball by the time they ushered me into my little office I was to share with two other folks who were working on the same project: coordinating literary readings across the country and publishing anthologies all to raise money for food banks, soup kitchens and other hunger relief programs.
When I stepped through the rickety old door, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen spun around and met me with a huge smile and outstretched arms: Meg! She was as nervous as I was, but at least she’d had the good sense to wear jeans and after a day of working together we rode the city bus home as we realized that we lived – literally – around the block from one another in Georgetown.
Meg was my confidante and my working partner. In many ways we were very different – she was from New York, I was from the south, but we connected on that soul level that only good friends (and fellow literature majors) can and became such close buddies at work and outside of work. We helped one another through the crazy ups and downs of young professional life to include oddball dates, grumpy landlords, intense work deadlines, plans for our future, serious relationships, graduate school – everything under the umbrella of that constantly gnawing twenty-something question Who am I supposed to be when I grow up?
After two years of working together, Meg moved to New York and I stayed in DC. I can remember her calling me one day and saying, “I see in color in New York. DC is black and white. but here life is every shade you can imagine. You must move here.”
And so I did. I applied to graduate school for creative writing and headed to the big colorful city. Shortly after I arrived, Meg’s parents who lived an hour outside of the city in Westchester on the Hudson River, invited me to housesit and watch over their adorable cocker spaniel while they took a long trip. I was delighted to and when they came back, I cooked them a big shrimp and grits dinner and they invited me to live with them and stay in their guest room for my second year of graduate school. This saved me a fortune and provided me a home way from home where I could write and enjoy both the big city and the great outdoors which was something I realized I needed to stay sane.
The story continues. Meg’s parents became my second parents. I fell in love with a great guy and moved to Charleston to marry him. Meg’s parents came down for a visit and decided it was time for them to retire in Charleston. They bought a lot across the street from my sister and her husband and built a house. Then Meg came for a long weekend visit on her way to LA where she planned to move, and we convinced her she needed to live here too. She met the man she later married her second night in Charleston and the story goes on from there with lots of twists and turns.
Now – fourteen years later – we’re all in the lowcountry: me, Meg’s parents (still across the street from my sister), Meg with her wonderful new hubby and two children.
The backside of the tapestry looks awful lumpy sometimes, but there is a tender hand at work behind it all. Every now and then He flips it back and lets us see the intricate design. How thankful I am that He picks friends like Meg to be in the weave of our lives!
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