Transplant Joy

      When I first met Joy, she was a transplant from Pasadena, California, but she was really just a young, small town Ohio, girl who had lived in California for a while and ran out of money.  She sat in the middle of a large auditorium, where our church met, all alone.  (If she was shy and backward, she would, definitely, not have sat in the middle.  She would have sat in the back or on the sides.)

     It was easy to spot her as a newcomer. She had a little bit of the “hippie” look with a long flowing skirt, loose clothes on her thin frame, long curly brown hair pulled back with clips, huge green eyes with dark eye lashes  and big wire-rimmed glasses.  Right from the beginning, she was direct, articulate, funny and a little sarcastic. She was always an adventure to talk to from day one, so we would talk and talk and talk.

      I love the adventure of meeting new people.  I enjoy the challenge and excitement of discovering people and getting to know them. It was not unlike me to be one of the first to meet someone new: I just like meeting people.  After a while, though, my part in the adventure would be over and they would make other new friends.   “…and the beat goes on…”

     With Joy, the Transplant, it was different.  She loved Columbus and all the things that our group of single friends enjoyed.  She was an adventurous girl and all of us, in those glorious days of the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s, had a myriad of adventures on a shoestring, of course.   She and I kept talking and talking. 

     When she was transplanted, again, to Cleveland to get married, she always missed the great times she had in Columbus.  The adventure kept going, somehow, because we talked and talked. 

      She tried many times to move back to Columbus, but it never worked out. She has now been away for 28 years.  Her grown daughter moved to Columbus, two of her sisters and many friends reside here, but the Transplant could not make moving back here happen for her.  So, we talked and talked.

     She decided to find adventure in her city, Cleveland: to bloom where she was planted.  She started a blog that is an adventure to read! [www.itsajoyfuljourney.wordpress.com, (A Sojourner’s Guide to the Mistake on the Lake)] It is a delightful journal of a baby boomer trying to find joy in Cleveland and trying to see something familiar with new eyes.  Now, besides talking and talking, she is writing and writing.  I highly recommend this blog, because it is direct, articulate, funny and a little bit sarcastic, just like the blogger. (She is now a trim, blonde with smooth hair. She wears no glasses and has trendy and classic clothes.  She even has a good job and two grown daughters.)

     As I reflect on my friendship with Joy, I realize that the adventures that we shared were more about conversation than anything else. (I think that is the essence of a lot of my friendships.)   The adventure was in the conversation, the communication, the talking…and the listening…The adventure was not going somewhere new, but in learning something new about a another person.   It was found in sharing something about ourselves, too, because as we open up to someone we refine and sharpen our own ideas and self-image. “Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.”