The last time I saw her was in Copenhagen, 2 years ago. Will and I had been driving around Scandinavia in his RV and just outside of Copenhagen, everything fell apart. I know someone in just about every country or every state, as a good connector should. I would not be making the voyage on the ferry back to England as planned. I was heartbroken and lost. I sent Lauren a message asking if I could come over.
We hadn’t talked in quite sometime. A number of years. Some friends are like that, you can fall right back into place with one another no matter how long you’ve been apart.
Lauren and I were in the same dorm in college in Bellingham, WA. She was the pretty, fun girl that everyone liked. One day, she just swooped me up, to my confusion. We’d never really talked, she just decided we were going to be good friends. We went on living with the bluegrass band together– long nights spent around the bonfire, drinking wine as the boys played banjo, mandolin and guitar. We both left for more. Lauren to study abroad and I to take on science studies at Bastyr. We both ended up world travelers.
She was doing doctoral studies in Copenhagen. I had always wanted to visit her, just not under these circumstances. She was my angel. We both had similar relationship woes in life and it felt good not to be the only independent, traveler woman who just couldn’t seem to make it work.
“For sure, come on over, we will go to Sauangus.”
I hadn’t known that Lauren had gotten into sauna culture, something that is one of my biggest passions. I long to travel the world and write a book on bathhouse culture around the globe. Will and I had passed many amazing looking saunas perched on the side of lakes as we cycled through Sweden. I had been to Scandinavia twice before visiting a Swedish boyfriend I had had, but the only sauna was in the bathroom of his parents house. There was a sauna at the hotel Will and I crashed in to get out of the rain but it wasn’t authentic. Lauren was about to take me to have the experience I longed for.
The Sauangus master leads you through the experience like the conductor leads an orchestra. We piled in, all beautiful Danish girls and us, into the cedar sauna and Lauren preformed the twirling of the towel to move the steam around the sauna while added essential oils. One girl talked of letting go of our pain and starting new, as if she was speaking right to me.
I have always skipped out on the cold plunge, but Lauren had me go in the wooden tub with her and stay submerged in the frigid water until you reached this state if euphoria. My attitude towards the cold plunge changed after Copenhagen, now it’s something I crave.
I will remember that evening with Lauren for the rest of my life. I will remember how much I needed her, how hearing her stories made me feel normal, how I had someone out in this world that I could count on, that I could show up on her doorstep, in tears and she’d welcome me with open arms.
Two years later, I get a message that she will be in the US with her Danish boyfriend, Jacob, and he really likes bees, can they come visit? They drive up to the meadery and it’s, again, like no time has passed. Jacob immediately feels like an old friend and seeing Lauren in this role I have never seen her in as a girlfriend, seems completely normal. We sit on the hillside, feeling the California sun and talk of how they met, how you just never know in life what’s around the corner. Both self proclaimed lone wolves, both forced to a party one dark Danish winter night, bumped into each other on the dance floor.
I loved having them in my world. I loved sitting outside eating dinner and talking of the world, of travels, of culture. I live in a beautiful place in California but it can get rather homogenous, rather white for a girl who grew up in Chicago, where my friends were of all colors and origins, all socio-economic classes, where maybe because my own father was an immigrant, I gravitated towards people new to this country as I longed to hear their stories and their perspectives. I spent my early adult life satisfying this culture curiosity by traveling the world. So, to have a little culture at my dinner table in my small town, was a gift.
The next day, I left for Denver.
I did not realize the last time I was in Denver was after that same trip to Europe where Will and I broke up. It was weird, two years ago I had seen Lauren and then had come to Denver. The last time I was in Denver, I was so, so sad. I thought this guy was "the one," we'd have kids and live happily ever after. He was my best friend and the break up was so out of left field for me.
I walk into the bedroom and put down my bags, the last time I was in this room, the tears seemed endless. I was ready to never go back to Point Reyes when Carly called and said they wanted me to work more at the meadery and that G would rent me an apartment. Everything changes after you hit rock bottom, as they say.
It’s weird to repeat these people and places from a time so devastating. I didn’t plan it at all. But it makes me reflect on how much has changed. I walk into the bedroom, a confident happy person. I have a job that gives me meaning and purpose educating people on honey bees, I have created some of the most amazing friendships in the last two years, I have forced my resistant self to date, often wanting to throw the towel in in utter frustration but forcing myself to try, try again because still a hopeless romantic, choosing hope over a bruised heart.
I will see family in Colorado. My brother who has been an anchor for me when I need advice. I will see good friends who mean the world to me. Two years ago, I felt like it was just me, dealing with life alone. Now, I am aware of the huge community and support network I have in California and all over the world.
Perhaps this repetition of people and places happened for a reason, so I could have a chance to reflect. So, I could really feel that the mantra I say when life is difficult, “this too shall pass,” is right and true.
I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Downton Abbey:
All life is a series of problems which we must try and solve. The first one and the next and the next, until at last we die. –Dowager Countess