Today Pru and I go the coffee shop in our village. Pru wears a bright yellow fleecy jumper. Everyone we pass smiles. People stop and chat. The yellow jumper makes Pru look cute and cheerful. Today doesn’t seem as bright and cheerful as some. Pru and I are meeting friends. Other mothers like me. We started our journeys together and have been meeting at the coffee shop in our village on and off for years. Over a simple cup of tea we have slowly weaved ourselves into each other’s lives. A friend has recently died. She was mother. She was our age. Her children go to school with our children. She had also weaved herself into our lives and now she is gone. The meeting up for simple chat and coffee has taken on a bit more meaning. Pru in her yellow sweater knows none of this. She sits on my lap in her yellow jumper. Quiet as a mouse. The old farm table in the coffee shop seems sturdy and stable. We do not feel sturdy and stable. We feel delicate and breakable. I place one hand on the table with Pru in my lap. We chat about an ill nephew, a recent trip to Bucharest and our friend’s upcoming funeral. We don’t meet every Friday but we do meet often. I always feel nervous about going. Home is my first choice but I go and I find that I share a little more openly today. Little things about what I’ve been reading. Quaker women preachers in the 1700’s. Women searching for peace the world couldn’t give or take away. My friend tells me she stumbled into a tiny church in Bucharest. It was warm and she loved watching the parishioners rituals upon entering the church. She says she could have sat in that tiny quiet church in Bucharest all day. Some women do.
The coffees and teas are finished. Someone checks the clock on their phone. Its getting on. We stand up to go. I feel delicate and breakable but a little more sturdy like the table we have sat at. We leave with plans to meet up for dinner or drinks. Someone mentions they aren’t drinking much these days. We all feel relieved. None of us feel like drinking. Drinking for a drinks sake is not where we are in life now. We can see being knee deep in life and motherhood isn’t something to numb out of, we might miss something. We are missing our friend. At the corner we go our separate ways promising to meet up for dinner. Pru barks at a passerby, the passerby smiles back. Pru is so cute in her yellow jumper.
Ivy and Palm 