The more I see of the world the more I am convinced that anything can happen and that nothing is sacred. Basically, that is the only rule of life. And this rule came to mind rather poignantly yesterday afternoon while window shopping in down-town with Ben Torres’ girlfriend. For me to be close friends with a fellow English major who appreciates chocolate, tea, cute shoes, P&P, and bargain shopping is only logical. But it is always difficult for me to forge my own relationship with someone whom I know only in reference to someone else. So when I first met Mariana and placed her on my mental “exceeds expectations” list ten minutes after Ben introduced me to her last April, I still wasn’t sure how things would work out between us. After all, she was “Ben’s Girlfriend” and I was “Ben’s Friend from Church.” Luckily, not everyone is as narrow-minded as myself, and boxes can be done away with in some circumstances. This possibility proved itself yesterday as we curled up on cushions at Jerusalem Garden restaurant, eating Moroccan food with our hands, and pondering how to juggle doctorate degrees with children.
I would think that I would have the intelligence to do away such boxes. Mariana is only one of the more recent escapees from my mental warehouse. People lie there, packaged and labeled, until they unceremoniously break through the cellophane tape and force me to take them on their own terms in place of my mental creations of their supposed selves.
Rosi is another example of my extreme presumption. Within the first honors meeting in Dr. Thuot’s tower classroom I sized her as bored, beautiful, perfect eye-liner, a down-right weird taste in music, and a cavalier attitude toward grades altogether inappropriate for an honors student. By December she was my closest friend at school.
But somehow, I don’t seem to learn. In a way this failing is delightful, since it amazes me to share nerdy pleasures with Rosi, like reading The Magician’s Nephew in the attic of Stowe Hall, or to re-discover how similar I am to Mariana while we admire restored Javanese furniture at Terra Nostra Home Decor down-town. Also, my mistaken ideas of people force me to practice humility. It is people like Mariana and Rosi who force me to accept the idea that life goes where it will. “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.” God delights in raining on our parades, wrecking our preconceptions, and reducing boxes to piles of gluey brown sludge.
Certainly, presumptions and narrow-mindedness constitute some of my greatest failings. But if God chooses to cure me of this failing through people like Mariana and Rosi, I welcome a rain which closes my parade in exchange for tea and friendship. It is a generous exchange even for all the fanfare and glitz of a Bourbon Street Mardi Gras.
