The Confluence

I know…I sort of left you all hanging about the "Confluence." Did you think I forgot?

As you all may or may not know, last Friday, I awoke at the crack of dawn (or at least it seemed like it to my self-indulgent, self-employed self…) to make the two-hour drive to a place I’d never officially visited (though I’d blown through numerous times on my way to somewhere else) to meet a person I knew but had never actually met. Miss Robbie had flown north for a quick vacation in Seattle. So close, and yet, so far away… Since it would mean one of us wasting three and a half hours drive time, for her to come to me or me to go to her, we chose what we thought would be closest to the halfway point for both of us. Spang! Olympia, Washington it was!

The day started out iffy… I was determined to leave the house by 8 am. The alarm went off at 6:30, but I was already out of bed. Shower, dress, and do the general "zookeeper" routine. Breakfast? Nah…we are meeting at Starbuck’s, and going on to a Farmers’ Market. Plenty of sustenance to be had later.

Hmmmm! A little ahead of schedule. Okay…I have time to sit down and pay some bills and get some other "business" out of the way. Check the email and read a few journals… Ooops! May have spent a little TOO much time on that stuff. Shut down the computer…out in the car by 8:00. Damn! Forgot the directions. Back into the house, reboot the ‘puter, print out directions. Back in the car by 8:05. Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed… Get to the end of the block (about 500 feet)…crap! Forgot the camera! Hang a quick u-ie, and back into the house again to retrieve said device. Finally on the road for real at 8:15. Okay…looking at likely tardiness. Not exactly a situation with which I am unfamiliar…

Halfway to my destination, it occurs to me that I should probably call Robbie and tell her that I am going to be late. At which time I also realize that her cel number is securely saved on my hard drive…and I have forgotten to print it out, write it down, or make it in any way available to myself as I am cruising up the interstate. Duh!

I begin stressing out at about milepost 39. (Rendezvous point is at Exit 105.) ‘Round about milepost 95, Robbie calls me. "Ummm…I’m not sure exactly where I am, but I think I’m going to be late…" Saved! Now, I have Robbie’s number in my phone’s memory. AND I wasn’t the first one to have to make the "I’m-gonna-be-late" call. On top of THAT, between Washington’s 70 mph speed limit, and the total absence of traffic, it looks like I might actually end up being on time. Life is good!

With the help of those great "Mapquest" directions, I pull up in front of the rendezvous point with time to spare (maybe one or two minutes.) Hmmm…on-street parking. I find a parking place about a half-block down from the appointed Starbuck’s, and attempt to parallel park. Now, in my defense, I am driving my husband’s car, which he insisted I take, because it gets twice the gas mileage of any other vehicle we own. However, I don’t drive it often…in fact, do not LIKE to drive it, because it is a five-speed….which, at my age, and having driven cars with automatic transmissions for 95% of the thirty-plus years I’ve been driving, is a challenge for which I have little patience at this point… I proceed to make a TOTAL ass of myself trying to parallel park this car...forward, reverse, forward, reverse…twist the wheel 180 degrees this way and then 180 degrees the other… and still end up four feet from the curb. After an eternity of this (probably about a minute and a half) I abandon the spot in favor of one a half-block down that I can pull into without the whole parallel parking challenge. What fun would life be without the stupid, memorable, FUNNY things we do when we think we are being all efficient and serious?

Fifteen minutes, one latte and a marionberry muffin later, Robbie and I finally connect. And what can I say about the experience? That I was a little nervous, but felt like I was meeting someone I already knew? Her appearance did not shock or surprise me. She looked very close to what I had imagined. Aided somewhat, I suppose, by pictures she had posted in her journal…but not completely. She just looked like…Robbie.

We walked, we talked, we partook a little of the gastronomic offerings of the Olympia Farmers’ market. We explored the Olympia waterfront, which I had not even known existed. We had fun doing pictures and acting like tourists. We thoroughly enjoyed the little Fourth of July Dixieland Jazz entertainment they offered at the market, and the food, and the jewelry and crafts. We talked our way to the top of a little observation tower on the waterfront, and back to a coffee shop across the street from the market, where we spotted Clyde and his owner, all set to ferry us around the waterfront district.

Four hours. Four hours is just about what we had. It didn’t seem like enough. I SO wanted to stay longer, to talk more, to explore our similarities and our differences. Young urban professional meets middle-aged hippie small business owner. L.A. urbanite meets Pacific Northwest refugee. Apartment dweller meets suburban gardener extra-ordinaire. Our differences dissolved in our similarities. Writers. Journallers. Women who feel deeply, and who share those feelings in the nurturing, challenging environment of on-line journals.

I am privileged to know Robbie. Even more blessed to have met her face-to-face. Still, I wish we had had more time…