Homage to Naomi

Inspired by fellow blogger Minty, who recently has been sharing the approaching-infinite-levels-of-coolness of her friends, this post is dedicated to an old friend of mine who is quickly helping California become home again.

Said friend and I met when I moved to California in 1999. We both started our jobs as interns at the U.S. Geological Survey simultaneously, both as relatively directionless recent college graduates. We were placed in cubicles right next to each other, and spent a good part of the following year together making jokes and throwing paper airplanes over our shared fabric half-wall. When I started thinking hard about graduate school, she gave me a reading list about California water issues because she thought they might motivate me. She was right. She also sold me my first car, her mother’s late 1980’s grey Toyota Camry that she had named Silver Sparkle as a child, but that I ended up naming Esperanza because driving the thing required a lot of faith (and some help from her father in replacing the transmission that blew out a week after I bought it).

Then she quit and moved to Davis to be with her future husband, Russ (ok, I can’t blame her, Russ is a good guy), and the paper airplane days ended. I attended her wedding in 2001, but then our lives drifted apart and we just barely stayed in touch. I moved to New Mexico to study; she stayed in Davis. I joined the Peace Corps, she stayed in Davis. We dropped out of each others’ sights completely.

In spite of being out of touch the entire three years I was Central America, I finally called her up one day last fall after I returned. Thank goodness she and her husband have owned their own home since before they were married; unlike the majority of my more itinerant friends, her phone number hasn’t changed in years and I got through to her immediately. After a few minutes of exclamations about how much time had passed, she told me that she now had a baby boy, which led to another round of exclamations. I told her I was thinking about moving back to California, and without hesitation she enthusiastically started listing all of the great places we would go and all of her wonderful friends that she would introduce me to. When I interviewed for my current job in Sacramento last December, I made a special trip to Davis to see her. Without my even asking, she offered to give me a driving tour of the area, a tour that even her tired 9-month old couldn’t deter her from. Later she dragged Russ and the baby out to have dinner with me at a restaurant on my birthday, and she made sure to ply me with pieces of three kinds of birthday cake and a bottle of wine that she (and Russ) had bought especially for me.

You know how the story goes: I accepted the job and moved to California. And when I happened to find a room for rent in a house just 5 blocks from where she lives in Davis, I jumped at the chance. I moved in last weekend, and already she has invited me to two walks and two dinners at her house, all of which I have happily accepted. She has given me a desk and a coat rack to put in my otherwise furniture-spare new bedroom. Not to mention that she helped me through my first bad bout of homesickness (for Honduras and Maryland simultaneously) yesterday. Next up? Her son’s first birthday party with all of her family and friends this coming weekend.

Naomi and I have led very different lives since our paths briefly crossed back in 1999. That doesn’t bother her at all; I think she knows that that doesn’t bother me either. Maybe she doesn’t know that she was the person who ultimately pointed me toward my career in hydrology, which has determined my life’s course ever since we met, or that I consider her one of the most grounded, fun-to-be-around and loving people I have ever had the pleasure of befriending. I am posting this entry so that now, she will know.