The Five-Minute Friend
It was outside of Leopold’s Ice Cream in Savannah—have you been there? It’s rated the best ice cream anywhere, and since I can’t eat ice cream, I opted for an icepack instead, once I’d made the embarrassing trip and fall performance on the cobblestone sidewalk in front of the establishment. My family got me a seat to sit and ice my knee, and then they got on the line for treats.
“Wow—are you okay?” A thickly accented voice asked me. By then I was fine, so I sat there with her—this woman from Yemen via Austin.
“Do you have a child graduating tomorrow too?” I asked, and in so asking opened her story, that she was the aunt of a graduate. The young person’s mother was being kept out of the country because she was from a “2020 travel-ban” Muslim country and could not get a visa from our government to travel to see her beloved child graduate from college, a privilege that I was about to enjoy for the third time. I hated hearing of her hardship, but I loved that she shared her story openly with me. A few moments later my family came out with their ice-cream cones, and I introduced them to the woman. My middle daughter said, “Mom, I love how you always make a five-minute friend! Hey, how’s your knee doing?”
One of my first five-minute friends was—well, we’ll call her “Shmemily.” Shmemily Shearer. Last year I was reminded of how we met a million years ago. It had been at a writing event, and she’d raised her hand and asked an advisory panel how she was supposed to know how to end the story she was writing. She was clearly struggling with this. So, I leaned over and told her that she was not alone, and that I was trying to figure out this very same thing. I quickly forgot that favor, but I remembered the friend, and looked for her the next year at this annual event. Since then, every year as I’m planning my trip to the event, I contact Shmemily. Sometimes we’re both going, and sometimes we have a chance to see each other. Last year we had a lot of time together, and one evening she recounted the story and said how much it had meant to her to make that connection with another writer. I wept a bit at the thought that a five-minute friend moment had meant the blessing of a long-term writer friend for me.
But that’s how it is if you’re wide open to it. At a writing class, a writer’s conference, a writing retreat, when someone says something, or writes something, that speaks to you, or weeps when you speak your writing. This is how writers survive the solitary occupation. The sole-proprietorship of being a writer—sometimes you need the quiet of being alone, but to then regroup with other writers is also immeasurably important. The sharing, the listening, the helping. The coffees and side-by-side work, and maybe later some wine and laughter. The being together in this endeavor, even if it’s only for five minutes. Or as often happens between writers, a connection for a lifetime.
PS: Shmemily, you can’t shake me!
Happy writing—Vicki Sanches
