the world ends here

I've been catching up with old friends recently. In part because the winter break has allowed me time to email - a luxury I don't have during the semester when students and other faculty members bombard me with important (and, more often than not, not so important) electronic messages. And, partly because I've had a falling out with a really dear friend of mine, which has made me want to cling to truly loyal friends from my past even more. 

This particular friend who I've reconnected with was not just a friend; she was my roommate of four (!) years during undergraduate. It's weird to say, but I knew she would be a friend before I even knew her. In undergraduate, I worked in the financial aid office the summer before my freshmen year. It was part of my "package," an incentive to woo me attend this small, liberal arts school. One day, I was filing information on all the "special" scholars, the twelve or so incoming freshmen with outstanding high school records who were awarded pretty significant financial packages. I was one of those students, relieved that all my high school nerdy-ness had finally paid off (I missed a few hotel parties but so what?). One file, in particular, caught my eye; the name was unique, and when I picked it up, it almost felt like there was some sort of electric charge to it. When I got home that afternoon, I found out that that girl was assigned to be my college roommate. We roomed together all four years through the good and the bad, and we've remained friends since.

Why take this trip down memory lane? I emailed my old roommate to discuss the details of another college friend's destination wedding - a trip none of our college friends, at this point in time, are able to make. In those exchanges, I started discussing my new project - a scholarly examination of past and present food memoirs - and my old roommate, being an editor, shared her experiences with Amanda Hesser's work. She also sent me a poem that she and her family included in a cookbook that they made for friends and relatives one Christmas. It captures so much, so perfectly - "Perhaps the World Ends Here" by Joy Harjo.

Keep sweeping, Martha