--For Laura Ivan
Laura was my neighbor before she was my
friend. She’d send me the occasional cow
or packet of gold coins and sometimes invite me to her farm to see how her lettuces
were doing. We might have harvested each
other’s crops occasionally if one of us had a lunch date or hair appointment
when they ripened. It’s hard to remember
life in Farmville ten years ago.
When I joined Facebook at the urging of a
cousin who later unfriended me for my “radical” political views, I didn’t see
much purpose in it. The games were fun
until the day I heard myself tell Donald I’d be down to help him weed our
living, growing garden as soon as I harvested my digital tomatoes. That was a wake-up call. I let my farm go to ruin, even at the risk of
losing “friends” I’d made playing the game.
In the meantime--as I lived two very
distinct lives in AZ and BC--Facebook helped me bridge the distance between
wherever I was at the moment and whomever I was missing at the time. It’s how I knew my grown daughters had a
nutritious breakfast, watched people’s babies and kittens grow up, picked up
advice on how to cook an exotic vegetable that turned up in my Bountiful Basket, and
connected with local activists in time to paint signs before the next march or
vigil.
Most of my Farmville neighbors moved on to
those who were still playing, but Laura and her sister Ruth stayed. Well, Ruth vanished pretty quickly because I
was too edgy, but Laura stayed . . . for the same reason. We resonated in so many ways—our leftward leanings,
our love for decadent retro recipes, our enjoyment of each other’s holiday décor. So many laughter emojis between us I couldn’t
begin to count them. Sometimes one of
her daughters would post that Laura was undergoing urgent heart surgery and
would be away for a while. I wrapped
that family in all the digital love I had, and it felt real.
Two days ago Laura posted a retro recipe
for pineapple upside down cake, and that got me thinking. I hadn’t made a pineapple upside down cake
since I gave up gluten last year. Baking
gluten-free is more like a chemistry experiment than a culinary coup. But I live by these small rituals of sharing
with friends, so I did a little research, a little mixing, and voila! The best
pineapple cake I’ve ever baked! The
edges are crispy-chewy with caramelized brown sugar, the cake is delicate, and
it practically drips with butter. (The
secret is almond flour.)
Last night between dinner and dessert, I
got a text from someone I didn’t recognize at first. It was Laura’s sister, Ruth: “Hi
Linda, i just wanted to let you know that my sister Laura passed away today
during emergency surgery. She's had a tough life with all the problems that she
was born with but was one tuff little lady. She's now pain free n for that im
grateful.”
I took a few deep breaths and wrote back a
few lines of heartfelt sympathy, wondering if I should tell Ruth about the cake
Laura had inspired. It was so trivial in
the face of her loss, but I wanted to convey how much I had enjoyed Laura’s
friendship for the ten years I knew her.
How true to character for Laura to leave something sweet for others to
savor. So I told her. And she replied, “Thats my favorite cake.”
In early days of social
media, I was a skeptic. How could people
we would never meet qualify as friends in any meaningful way? What could we share of any lasting
value? It seemed the palest imitation of
life, a shortcut to a false sense of intimacy.
But over the years I’ve learned better.
I have new sisters closer to me than the ones I was born with. We are in each other’s lives daily. Behind the scenes, we share things far too
tender to broadcast on Facebook. We might
as well be sitting at each other’s kitchen tables.
I have friends who read, friends who
quilt, friends who think, friends who travel, friends who sing, friends whose writing and art take
me everywhere in time and space. Friends
whose stories I can make a safe space for--a different kind of living, growing
garden. Friends I can share another
blurry photo with and say, “Look, I saw this for you today.”
The 2:00 AM friend
who asks, “What’s wrong? Do you feel
defeated?” and waits for an answer.
We need them like air right now. They give us something sweet to counteract
the bitter, to steady the shaky foundations of places we once thought rock-solid.
I am going to miss Laura for a long time because parting is a sweet and
lingering sorrow. For the sake of her
memory, though, this will always be the best pineapple cake in the world.
