Breakfast with Emery

 

On Wednesday evening, I received a text from my friend, Emery. We've been friends for several months, as co-facilitators and members of the DBSA support group. I feel a kinship with her as a fellow old soul, albeit a soul currently residing in a considerably younger body. Tomorrow was going to be her 27th birthday. 

Wise beyond her years, she still struggles with the things that people in her age group find difficult, and it was because of the weight of some of these struggles that I got a text from her. She was feeling down, doubting herself and in general, experiencing the blahs. 

How I entered into her mind as a person to remedy this, I don't know. I'm not generally the most positive, uplifting person. I'm more funereal, really. Perhaps due to my inability to feign a saccharine sweetness, she's come to regard my words as, at the least, honest and relatable, if not altogether encouraging. Anyway, with my status of being the world's preeminent perennially depressed person, she didn't have worry about bringing me down.

For whatever reason, she picked me to tell her troubles to on this occasion, and I relished the opportunity to hack away at any self-doubt that might be obfuscating her ability to see a true picture of herself. I wanted to make her see herself as I and virtually anyone with a modicum of sanity would perceive her: as a truly majestic human being, beautiful in every respect. So young and full of limitless potential, with brains up to here, still she has a blind spot that is common to a lot of brilliant artistic souls: the inability or unwillingness to believe fully and irrevocably in oneself.

She asked me if I'd like to have breakfast with her on Thursday. Would I? Meet one of my favorite people for the first time and have breakfast? Hell-to-the-yeah! 

I saw her in front of the restaurant, and I recognized her at once, though she was even taller in person than I'd imagined. There she was, wearing a pretty blue dress, a baby blue bow in her hair tied in a smart butterfly knot in the back, and sporting brown leather/suede lace-up ankle boots. She was wearing contacts rather than her trademark professorial glasses, but it was her, without a doubt, in the flesh and larger than life.

I know I'm an old fart, and I don't get out much, but being seen in public with such a smart young beauty ups my stock's value considerably, dontcha think? Like being in the company of royalty, or at the very least an A-list celebrity. But that is just my superficial male ego kicking in; I find her intensity and depth of character to be outstanding, among her many other most appealing attributes. Fascinatingly complex, and yet, surprisingly accessible. 

Inside the relatively busy diner, we had a nice breakfast and discussed the things that weighed on her. I was struck by the incongruity of this marvelous person with her laser-focused awareness, a picture of beauty and intelligence, yet so vulnerable and doubt-ridden and just in need of someone to spill her guts to. I felt almost guilty to be so privileged.

She talked, and I listened. I didn't contradict her or attempt to invalidate her feelings. I just was a friendly face, a sympathetic ear. I, too, knew those feelings. I've had my own squad of anti-cheerleaders shouting in my head, deafeningly at times, so I could relate.

I don't think I solved any of her problems or offered her anything tangible in the way of advice, but as time went by, she became less anxious. The temerity in her voice turned into a natural, easy singsong. I probably glazed over, slightly mesmerized by her dynamic personality. Even a damaged, depressed Emery is still an awesome thing to behold.

After breakfast she said she was going to hit up several bookstores in the area and asked if I wanted to tag along. Of course, I would. This day was just getting better and better. 

We took her car and drove to the first bookstore, though it was only a block or so away from the restaurant. We probably could have gotten there quicker walking, as her GPS seemed determined to sabotage the trip, robotically suggesting that she make illegal turns down one-way streets and showing an inverted, mirror image of the route.

Walking from the parking lot, I struggled to keep up with her long strides. Stepping off the curb, she was at once statuesque and confident, awkward and ever so slightly inept at walking. Her determined steps occasionally stumbled just a bit, from which she would recover, graceful as a heron who'd stepped in a less than auspicious piece of swampland. I felt a little like Digory walking the streets of London with the towering, otherworldly Queen Jadis of Charn leading the way.

Bookstores are like candy shops for her. She glided around the aisles like a ghost haunting a favorite venue. I hadn't been in a bookstore for years, so I was just taking it all in, still in a state of glazed-over fascination with how the day was unfolding. It had a very dreamlike quality.

She purchased several books, and on our way we went. We passed a storefront bearing a sign that said "The Witch is In" and stopped inside just long enough to satisfy our curiosity, then we were off to another bookstore, this time in Nevada City. 

I had to follow her in my car, and we had what seemed to be a bit of a slow motion car chase as she made erratic turns, doubling back and ducking down alleyways, looking for the ever elusive Elysian fields of the public parking lot. We finally found it, smack in the middle of the tiny hillside town, after navigating a labyrinth of concentric circles.

We hit up another bookstore, where she bought more books, then stopped for an ice cream cone. This was her day to treat herself to whatever made her happy, and ice cream has a pretty good track record for accomplishing that sort of thing. 

We stayed in the air-conditioning for a bit and then went outside and sat at a little table out in front of the ice cream parlor. I stared up at a blue sky peppered with little white clouds while she finished her ice cream cone. There really isn't anything more to be done in those moments, scant as they are, than to just sit back and admire them for their extrinsic as well as their intrinsic awesomeness.

On our way back to the parking lot, we stopped in one last store, a tin shack that sold rocks and crystals. She bought a decorative rock to memorialize the occasion. Finally, it was time to go. We hugged goodbye in the parking lot, thanked each other for a lovely morning and went our separate ways.

Driving home, I realized that something was missing from my consciousness. That feeling of depression and my incessant negative background soundtrack were conspicuously absent. Was this what normal people did? Go out to breakfast with friends, hang out and go shopping, eat ice cream and talk? I felt like I was wearing someone else's clothes, and I liked them better than my own. 

This re-emergence from depression thing didn't happen all at once, nor was this breakfast event the only social event on my calendar of late. I've been texting, talking and visiting with a wonderfully warm and extra sweet lady to whom Emery, as it happens, introduced me. 

I won't name or blog about her just yet, though. I am still living in the moment, and prefer not to taint it with analysis or description. I don't want to jinx it, but things have been going so nicely with her and I, that I am in uncharted territory. My familiar script has been swapped out, and now I'm in my own coming of age film, "The Dawning of the Age of Andrew." 

I'll leave off here, since I've most likely alerted the Karma gods to my undeserved good fortune, and they'll most likely show up soon to even the score.