A Winter's Friendship

There are times when circumstance and people come together in a way that hindsight finds a true blessing. It may be that a common thread seems to be a thorn in the side, but instead turns out to be the first stitch that pieces together a friendship.
In the early spring of 2007, I moved into an old farmhouse in a village in the hills of southwest New Hampshire. It seemed perfect. It was spacious with two large fireplaces and a sun room that looked out on the gardens. There was a small studio sized apartment in the basement and a young woman, Kristen, was living there temporarily while waiting for the weather to warm up so that she could move out into the woods for the summer. Darcy, a nurse, lived upstairs with her two cats, Teddy and Dipstick. Teddy, a large yellow cat, and, Dipstick, a gray tiger with white at the end of her tail, could be heard on many occasions running from one end of the apartment to the other, sounding as if they were bowling over the old pine floors.
I started experiencing difficulties with the landlady early on and soon realized that the property was poorly managed and that repairs were usually done with spit and duct tape, if done at all. If the building was up to code it was probably a code devised pre-electricity. The landlady was also experiencing a deep depression and as the year went on it was becoming increasingly evident that she was not able to manage the property. Her family wanted her to sell, but she refused. This house had been in her family for years and she was reluctant to sell so soon after her mother’s death.
Kristen moved to the woods in May, living in a small campsite at the edge of a pond. She would stop by to see Darcy and I at least once a week and tell us stories of visits from beavers, bear and deer. She had informed the village police and neighbors that she was there and had permission from our landlady to live on the property. In exchange for the site, she was responsible for the mowing and raking on the grounds around the house.
It took a few months for us all to come to together and talk about the difficulties we were having with the landlady, but once the ice was broken we realized that we were each experiencing the same struggles and were not alone in feeling as if there was something very wrong. We agreed to compare notes on conversations because we were often being given different answers to the same questions. We also realized that we needed each other’s support in trying to navigate living in a place where the landlady had few boundaries and made management decisions on a whim.
Unfortunately, the two cats that I had with me when I moved into the apartment had started to act up and behaving very poorly. After weeks of struggling to change their behaviors I realized that I was not going to be able to live there peacefully unless I gave them up. I was determined to fulfill my promise of living there for a full year and I realized that even if I did move, the cats’ behavior would continue and would make finding another place difficult. It was a difficult decision and I mourned their loss.
Shortly before I left for a trip to Tibet in late August the landlady left her home in the barn. It was a few months before she returned to manage the property but she never moved back. Some of the difficulties continued but they were lessened by her absence.
As summer turned cooler and the days became shorter, we started to relax. Kristen would come to Darcy’s apartment and make dinner now and then and one night she invited us to her campsite. We met her at the end of the path with our flashlights and she guided us through the woods, along the edge of the pond and pointed out which rocks to step on to make our way over a stream. Her campsite was wonderful. Everything had been set up to make the least impact on the environment as possible. As we sat around the fire drinking hot apple cider we heard beavers slapping their tails on the surface of the pond. I had hoped to see one of the bears that had visited the campsite previously but our laughter must have warned him away. As Darcy and I walked back to the house, we agreed that it had been a beautiful night.
On still Monday nights we could hear the sound of fiddles coming from the town hall up the road. Kristen would put on a skirt and go contra dancing. I went with her once but found the packed room and the kicking legs more than I could take. However, during the evening I saw Kristen dance with a man and I was struck by the intensity of the energy between them. It was as if they had lit sparklers while they touched.
A few weeks later Kristen talked about the man she had met at the dance and how she couldn’t get him out of her mind. I knew immediately which man she talking about. I encouraged her to make some sort of move but she was unsure.
In early October, Darcy and I started to question how much longer Kristen was going to live in the woods. I was also wondering if I could afford to heat the drafty 250 years old farm house. I had an extra bedroom and I invited Kristen to spend the winter with me, rather than moving back into the cellar. She agreed and as winter moved into New Hampshire the three of us settled into semi-communal living.
It was magical. Kristen was teaching part time and was trying to decide what the next step in her life was going to be. Her biological clock was booming and she had just come out of a bad relationship. I had concerns about the agency I was working for and had just ended a short, but intense relationship. Darcy was still mourning the loss of her last relationship, but was starting to enjoy her freedom. As I look back, we were all just coming to a point of change and it was our friendship that gave us the space and freedom to relax and ease into the next phase of our lives.
Darcy and I nurtured Kristen like an adult daughter and Kristen returned the favor with her joy and desire to feed the people she loves. I would often come home to fresh muffins and chili. There were many nights when Darcy would come down with a magnificent salad of greens, pine nuts, raisins, orange slices, and whatever else she could find and we would sit down to a wonderful home cooked meal and warm bread. Some evenings Darcy would bring a couple of movies and we would sit in the living room, wrapped in comforters and afghans watching a movie. Darcy would do needlework, I would be knitting and Kristen was always working on some project for her pre-school or college aged students. By this time, I had started fostering Mia, the cat the landlady had left behind. Mia would move from one lap to another or come over to play with my yarn.
There were also nights when Bella would come to visit. Bella was Kristen’s and her ex-boyfriend’s Swiss Mountain dog. She would visit for days at a time, much to Mia’s chagrin, and her boisterous love filled the house. I loved to hear her tail hitting the cupboards as she expressed her joy at my homecoming each day.
On New Year’s Eve, Kristen danced with the man from the past summer again. They ended up going to a walk in the snow and then came home and talked until the early hours of the morning. Darcy and I watched as Kristen started to fall in love and began to let go of the hurt of her previous relationship. We knew that Kristen was very serious when she invited her new man over for dinner.
Darcy and I took our roles as surrogate mothers very seriously and spent the evening getting to know this man who was making Kristen happy. She was still struggling with what her future would bring but she was falling in love and trying very hard to live in the moment.
Life moved on and our magical winter had to come to an end. I was feeling like I really needed to move as I had spent a year there and did not think I could afford it much longer. I was very fortunate to find a house sharing situation at reduced rent just before the agency I worked for cut our pay. Kristen stayed in the apartment for another month.
Kristen continued to go to Darcy’s now and then to fix dinner and I drive on over to enjoy whatever delicious meal she serves. It was at one of these meals shortly after Christmas this year that Kristen announced that she was pregnant. It was wonderful news all around. We were ecstatic for her.
A few weeks ago we all met for dinner again and talked about where we had been and what changes had occurred. I was getting ready to move to Concord to be near an exciting new job, Darcy had just put an offer on a condo (she knew she couldn’t spend another winter in an apartment that had a furnace that shot flames out the back whenever it turned o, leaving Dipstick with singed whiskers) and Kristen was glowing from her pregnancy. We laughed as Teddy sat on a stool and hung his legs over the edge in sort of a downward cat yoga pose and we ate asparagus pizza and reminisced.
I know that with all of the changes in our lives that our time together will be less frequent but I don’t think we will ever lose the friendship that grew out of our time on the farm in Nelson. Yesterday, at Kristen’s shower, Darcy and I stood in a circle with Kristen’s friends and family, blessing her and this child. As I stood there I recalled the intensity of emotion that I felt between Kristen and her future partner as they danced on that summer night almost two years ago. A small inner voice told me that it had been the spirit of the child she now carries, urging them forward, asking them to become parents. I know that this child will be born into a life of love because I know that Kristen draws love to her in special ways.
The life quilt of friendship that was sewn together during that time in the farmhouse, through that cold winter, continues. We are each on our different paths but make sure to meet at the crossroads for tea and muffins.