By Jill Tydor
Life can be hard to articulate.
There was no real transition period that I can remember between the filterless state of childhood, where thoughts took a direct route from brain to mouth – to my now. Now, I balance precariously between time spent polishing savored thoughts, rough at first and smoothed out over long car rides or spare moments in the office, and extended jags of quiet burdened by worries and taxing moments of neuroses.
“You remind me so much of him,” she said the first time we had coffee. He was her other part. A maddening puzzle she couldn’t unravel, but couldn’t help loving. And I suppose I was the key.
For better or worse, my head has always been my refuge. Everything just seemed clearer there. Ideas shone brighter and thoughts were deeper. The reasoning behind decisions was more complex. I was even wittier lost in thought. The words that always failed to come precisely in the right way at the right time, here took shape. There was always a comeback. My manners were impeccable, my stories endearing.
Introvert. Daydreamer. Obsessive compulsive. Take your pick.
It started as a random leap toward friendship. The gregarious hippie child and bookish cynic swap stories over lattes. She was everything I wasn’t: Unrestrained, unfiltered, passionate, a mother, a survivor, an advocate. Where her words flowed freely, I played my cards close to the vest. It was a well-worn tactic – pieces of information doled out like prizes, gained with trust and time.
But she was persistent and very curious. Usually I was the one asking all the questions.
A college friend once said it best:
“Am I like this because I am a political science major? Or am I a political science major because I am like this?”
I chose to consider her shrewd world-view something innate rather than learned. Much as I think I stumbled into journalism because of my curiosity, not the other way around. But here I had met my match. Someone as voraciously interested in me as I was about the world in general.
Over the course of months, these mornings at the coffee shop became like a drug. We talked politics and argued religion, sometimes lapsing into incoherent proclamations about issues we were both too uneducated to really discuss – like stem cell research or veganism.
At times the conversation swayed to her own personal Rubik’s cube, her silent Scorpio. He was a man that shared a similar temperament and sly sense of humor, but I hardly saw my face in his eyes the way she did when we first met.
“You know, I don’t think you two are the same anymore,” she said to me one day, about a year later. “You have so much to say.”
“Thank you for listening,” I replied.
Jill Tydor lives and works in the Bay Area.
