Flowers for Jane's House

Flowers for Jane

Blogs are funny places. Hearts on sleeves.

You meet people, but you have never met them. You fall in love with someone whose hand you have never held. I was in love with Vince before we met in person. The cab ride to Newark International was the most tense, the most exciting ride of my life. AND we got lost on Staten Island, on the way, the yellow cab driver as excited and distracted as I was, giving me advice about this auspicious meeting, and marriage, all the way. He was crushed when, at the airport, after I'd found Vince, tall, dressed in black (I was, too!) we decided to stay there for our coffee date instead of riding back to Brooklyn immediately in his cab. I still wish I could find him to tell him how it turned out. He was the rare New Yorker.

I was terrified on that ride because I was worried that Vince and I would not click in person, that the chemistry would not be there. But it was. No doubt. Five alarm fire.

So that worked out.

And then there is Jane, whose Small but Charming I've been reading since she started it in 2009, after I got to know her on this blog. She is a natural-born writer (I'm still waiting for the book) and has captured the hearts of friends all over the planet, with stories of her life in Arlington, before Arlington, her garden, her Flowers in the House on Mondays, her cooking, the flower shop, the lab, the new kittens, her struggle to quit smoking, to lose - not much - weight (achieved, and achieved) and, always, everything infused with her love for her girlfriend and partner, GG.

So when I opened a new post of Jane's last night and read that GG is leaving, out the door, it felt like a kick in my own guts. My poor friend. I wanted to get on a plane or a train and go south immediately. How I know that feeling. That horrible feeling. And if it happened to me now? It does not bear thinking about.

Today, we will talk for the first time. And next month I'll visit. And I'm not worried about the chemistry. I'm just worried about my friend. I love her, too.

We have you surrounded, Jane.