Heather.

I don't remember when we connected exactly but I know when I lost my gig writing about photography that it was because of you and also really because I blew deadlines but of course I blamed you even before I knew you because really, this blaming myself thing? Tiresome, right? 

So I was expecting greatness when you showed up, dammit. 

And when I realized it was really you - that you were inherently great and it didn't matter what pictures you took or what you wrote about or why or where - then it was just that you were immediately my friend that mattered. 

You were another amazing human being arisen from the beautiful mess of the Internet, the sort of person who, like all of the deepest friends I've found in this medium, I would have immediately liked in real life so really the fact that the computer was the initial matchmaker made no nevermind. It just made knowing you possible, whereas honestly, the odds of us meeting in real life otherwise, were slim to none. 

Maybe. We both kinda get around. 

Minutes after the above photo was taken (really, could someone have helped me to attend to my hair?) and hours after Obama accepted the nomination, we were walking through the streets of downtown Denver. And I, altitude-sick and exhausted, prat-falled straight off the curb, face-planted into the cement. Ugly. And that guy came out of the mist, literally, to help me up, and you were like, "Holy shit, you just conjured him up. You fall down, there's a dude stepping out of nowhere to pick you up." 

That never happens, or maybe almost never. We both know that. But it put a little bit of fun and funny into the road rash, and as much as I miss my Nikon from that week and as much as my knees have never been the same since they hit the street that night, I'm glad you were there if it had to be anyone. 

I'm sure I'd have met other cool people were it not for the computer, it's true, but they wouldn't be you. 

We share something very specific, a similar experience that the very vast majority of people don't and that is a way of looking at the world because of the way people look at us and the lens through which we have always seen ourselves. We share the experience of people taking our faces in their hands from when we were babies, literally and ostensibly to heal them. And you know and I know what that does to you, what kind of a person that contributes to turning you into. You'd no doubt describe it in some different words, and it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to hear them at some point. But I think, empathetically, I understand, at least the broad brush outline. 

When I think of you I think of long hair and a love of pictures and animals that I share, I think of a simultaneous constant engagement with and yet energetic search for a sense of origin and place that I relate to so deeply that it is occurring to me in this moment that it might be our deepest similarity, others notwithstanding. I I think of someone who knows California and loves Colorado and the Gulf Coast, a sharp contrast to this stubborn East Coaster. I think of someone who writes and shoots like a champ whose damn blog should be more widely read.

I think of someone who risks - for love, for life, for self, for sanity. I think of someone who knows how fucking funny this all really is - the bitter and the sweet, all mashed up together. And who not only knows this but lives it. 

And that is why, beyond any other similarity, I think we connect so very very well. It's why I'm the most glad that you're my friend. 

Comments

[Heather]

Wow. Whoa. Oh my. Etc.

Laurie - you have taken my breath away with this post. I don't know what to say or type or anything. I just keep sitting here, mumbling and shaking my head. I have a friend who is staying with me and I keep calling her in here so I can read your beautiful words aloud.

I am so deeply honored and touched that you have focused your razor-sharp writing skills onto my being. This might be the best birthday present EVER.

Expect the biggest, fattest HUG from me next summer in NYC. You'll never get rid of me now.

[Leslie M-B]

Yes, Heather is teh awesome and completely deserves the love you show her in this post. I also owe her a debt of gratitude--you may not know this--because she totally socialized my husband (as in introducing him to other homo sapiens) when he had gone a little feral. I wish we lived closer to her so that she could still provide that service from time to time...