Bridge night

Today I'm rolling out the rest of the best (or interesting) photographs from my trip south. This picture is of a blossoming tree on the square in Fayetteville. (Below are some daisies growing in front of the newspaper's office.) Tomorrow it will be time to move on to other topics, but I would like to reflect and comment a little more on the vacation, though.

For instance, what did I learn? I discovered that taking notes about things that caught my attention or occurred to me while making a long drive helped the time go slightly faster. I found that Kentucky drivers were easily the worst I encountered in a trip that passed through seven states. I learned that telling a child that a tree is an emergency potty means she will share this information at a later time, potentially to the parents' embarrassment.

I had reinforced that where you are isn't as important as who you are with. Several people, including my hosts, expressed surprise that I would choose to vacation in Arkansas. Why in the world would I go there? The answer: to get away for a bit and to see them. It all seems kind of crazy and impulsive now. It did somewhat at the time too. Yet everything worked out very well. I got along swimmingly with the people I knew mostly through electronic communication.

Which isn't to say that it's been easy to explain to others. Au contraire. My impression has been that the nature of online relationships causes them to be viewed with suspicion. At least that's what I thought people believed. Perhaps that's what you were thinking. Those I met on the trip didn't say that they found anything strange about it, although I'm not sure they understood entirely. My mom called me Monday morning thinking I was home. When I explained who I'd been visiting--loaded with qualifiers, mind you, as I knew her imagination would run wild with the mention of visiting female friends--she asked why I thought she would think it was odd.

So maybe my perceptions are wrong. Maybe we've reached a time when people don't think there's anything weird about meeting those you've known almost exclusively online. Ultimately I think the diminishing of that stigma is a good thing. Certainly it doesn't hurt to exercise caution, and there's no guarantee that face-to-face communication will be as relaxed. Still, like the railroad bridge in Fayetteville pictured above, the electronic bridge that helps people find like-minded friends must serve a good purpose, right? That being said, don't worry. I won't be showing up on your doorstep. Not without an invite, that is.

For me, knitting and this blog have been a bridge connecting me to new friends, people I might not otherwise have come to know or come to know as well. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started knitting, and I definitely had no clue where this blog would take me, literally in last week's example. It's been my figurative bridge to the 21st century.

I am at heart a quiet person. Despite evidence to the contrary, there are still vestiges of shyness and a preference for privacy within me, at least on a wide scale. I have no trouble confiding in those I feel close to, but I don't feel a need to explain who I am to everyone. What's remarkable from this side is that I've shared more about myself on this blog than I ever intended to. In retrospect some of it is embarrassing, but I think it's also been important for me in attaining deeper knowledge of myself. And you thought this was just a knitting blog. And I thought this was just a knitting blog!

Superbad, which I saw with Noel while in Arkansas, may look like just a raunchy teen comedy about the big, final party before school ends, but at its core the film explores a serious question about friendship. It got me to thinking about those friends who have faded away, not because of any bad endings but due to life leading people in separate directions. Noel and I talked about that on the way back to his house and whether the film's ending was happy or not. Let's split the difference and call it bittersweet. It's sad for what is likely lost and happy in that it appreciates what they had and where they are going even if it may be without one another.

That was not what my vacation was about, but it called to attention how lucky I felt to have met Jenn, Donna, and Noel. The trip meant forging new friendships. For that I am extremely grateful.

Back to griping about knitting problems tomorrow. :)