I’ve just returned from a trip. Do you all remember that Sue from Une Femme and I attended New York Fashion Week together last year? As it happened, we got along so swimmingly, and found ourselves to be such well-suited travel companions, that we thought we’d go somewhere together again.
And then, ages and ages ago, I had met Frances of Materfamilias, with her husband, in San Francisco, and so enjoyed our conversation that I’d vowed to visit her in Vancouver some day.
And so it came to pass. Sue and I flew up, Sue from Southern California, me from the Bay Area.
Let me reveal that I haven’t felt the need to make new real-life friends in the past couple of decades. I am lucky in my family, which is large and good at talking, I have a best friend of more than 20 years – we chat on the phone several days a week. I’m quite devoted to my new marriage and my children.
So I have blogged because I love to write, I love taking pictures, and thinking about design, I love emails that let me know someone’s been helped or amused and comments from readers wiser, better-read, simply more themselves than I. I have loved this process of self-examination in good company.
But when you meet a couple of women, online, and then write side-by-side with them for going on 10 years, the real life conversations illuminate, reassure, entertain, comfort, and deepen connection. There’s a way in which this online relationship-building slides you into friendship sideways, takes you past possible barriers – distance, life differences, whatever – to a place you can’t predict but must value.
These are people from whom I learn things I cannot find out on my own.
So thanks to my travel companion, our wonderful hosts, and to new places and people.
Sue posted about our visit here, and Frances, here.
Have a good weekend everyone.
30 Responses
Lovely to see you in Vancouver with a delighted smile on your face. Last night I read Frances’ post on your trip. Vancouver is glorious. Delighted you went to MOA. Each time I’m in Vancouver, I spend hours there. I’d be happy to move in. Glad you had a good time. Happy Saturday.
@Katherine C. James, Thank you! And I was exactly that, delighted. MOA made me cry. I swear the spirits of those people have not left.
Happily following Katherine in your comments . . . yes, these online friendships can build layers and layers and slide into rich and rewarding and surprising IRL bonds. Thanks so much to you and Sue for making the trip up here. Hope to see you again without quite so much time as between our last two visits! ;-) xoxo
@Frances/Materfamilias, Good morning, Frances, from a more southerly clime. It’s a blue, sunny day in Northern California. Birds are chirping, the backyard fountain is burbling. According to my weather app, Vancouver is Mostly Cloudy, with a promise of Partly Cloudy on Sunday, and Sunny on Monday. May those predictions come true. Wanted to add a coda for you and for Lisa: On your blog you wrote of coffee at Thierry, where your group plotted “world domination.” After reading the morning news I’m even more certain of what I thought last night when I read that: I’d be happy to live in the world you all imagined. We’ll get there. xo.
@Frances/Materfamilias, Yes. Next time sooner. Thank you for all your time and thought.
First of all, great shot of the water and horizon. I do think there is a special bond in friendships with our buddies on IG or blogs. We visit them so often and that we know them without really knowing them. So when you come together it’s a true celebration.
Cheers,
Sandy
@Sandra Sallin, Thank you. And it did feel like a true celebration.
Love the shot of you guys together. I’m late to the blogger community I know. Both reading and writing…I didn’t know it existed until five years ago. Then I read and lurked, then started commenting and then writing my own blog. And I found so many interesting, like-minded women. It’s wonderful. And I love how you say you “slide” into a friendship kind of “sideways.” As I said to me IRL friend yesterday, I find my self saying things I truly feel more easily in my blog than I would in day-to-day conversation with friends. Funny how they think they know me… but maybe not:)
@Sue Burpee, I think in part we actually change as we blog, and have to go back and update real life friends. Glad you have joined the crew!
Lovely to see you up in our neck of the woods.
To travel with Sue and meet up with mater sounds like a treat…I am sorry that you had to experience our rain but I am gathering that all those smiles means that it mattered very little in the end!
Th UBC MOA is one of my favourite places to look and linger…a perfect place to be on a rainy soaked day in the PNW.
@Bungalow Hostess, Sue and I were happy to see the rain – Californians are like that:). It was fun to be in your neck of the woods, as you say. So many Canadian bloggers, fun to take a peek.
So interesting to read all three takes on your time together. Obviously much enjoyed by you gals, and a little bit envied by the rest of us, but in a good way x
@Jules Cooke, In a good way:). Thank you.
What a great and fun idea.
@MaryAnne, It was awesome.
What a wonderful resume of a wonderful meeting
All three of you look so happy and beautiful
Dottoressa
@dottoressa, Thank you. I hope you enjoy the thought of us together as I did the thought of you and Frances meeting up. xoxox.
Sounds like a fun trip. I’ve never traveled with anyone other than family. I would love to see Vancouver and Victoria…and Montreal.
@Kathy, I guess I hadn’t traveled this way with anyone but my sister – somehow it seems quite comfortable.
What a great post. I see the internet building communities in so many ways.
@Susan D., For better or worse…
Yes, there is that part too. But, I was only thinking of the great communities that are formed.
My three favorite bloggers! As an American ex-pat living in eastern Ontario for the last twelve years, I’ve not found the community of women here as I have everywhere else I’ve lived and I’ve missed it. I came here when I married a Canadian and he still works while I’ve been retired for quite awhile (major age difference, not quite Brigitte but close) and so my life is busy, but you three have become my community, lots of shared interest sand tastes and I value you all so much. Thanks
@Barbara from Guelph, Ah how lovely to hear this! I am so glad you are a part of what we have all been building, almost without knowing it. Maybe we should see the photo of the three of us with outlines of many many other women up there on the terrace with us.
I am so glad that you three could meet like this!
Hoping the planets will align one day, Lisa and that my annual trip to the US will take me to your city very soon.
SSG xxx
@Sydney Shop Girl, That would be just wonderful. I would love to meet you in SF.
So happy for you all. You’re three of my five favorite bloggers. What a surprise … not!
Oh, your words truly highlight the most rewarding aspect of blogging, which I wholeheartedly second. It is the connections one makes and the information one’s readers are willing to share that makes this very modern means of making “friends” and connecting so very, very satisfying.
I’m so glad we met.
What a lovely photo of the three of you, and I have enjoyed reading your three different and also harmonious takes on the trip. What fun.
I have ENJOYED MY MEET UPs SO VERY VERY MUCH!
It is a GOOD CONNECTION we have found here in the BLOGSpHERE!!!!!!
GLAD YOU were able to JOIN UP with these GALS!
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