Stopping By

I have a dear friend named Susie. She enriches my life with every interaction. Life before Susie, Life after Susie.

I was chatting with her this morning because well, I am always awake. I invited myself over to her house this week without thinking twice about it and then realized that I had invited myself over to her house without thinking about it. Sorry I just invited myself over… “You can always invite yourself over!” “Let's get better and better at it. I like living that way.” YES!

I love it. Come into my house, have tea, I’ll feed you whatever I have and we will discuss our lives and philosophies, share our experiences in an unplanned way. Bring your dog, find a spot on a couch, judge my (in)ability to care for my suffering houseplant population.

It seems to me that we did live this way, at least we did when I was a kid. I walked in and out of people’s houses freely and expectedly. I sat on Ingrid’s porch with Barbies in hand until someone woke up and unlocked the door. I considered Janet’s refrigerator my refrigerator and Sarah’s snack pantry (stocked with all the items that my nutrition-label-reading Dad would not purchase for our house) fair game.

Around Christmas time, the person I was dating and I were leaving my family’s house and headed home, debating stopping by a friend’s house on the way. It was on the late side but it would nice to say hello. You know, just stop by, live in the way that you do when you have a community and for me, Christmas is mostly about community and Seattle has been about creating a new community.

In my mind, it was late, it was a Sunday and popping in on a Sunday isn’t as fluid as dropping by on Friday or even Thursday. So as we headed down I-5 and the decision was made, my inclination was to give them a call and forewarn them of our arrival on their doorstep in less than 7 minutes.

What? Are you calling? Why are you calling him? We’ll just stop by. Don’t call him, oh you are already calling him. Sigh. Head shaking, amused and bothered simultaneously. I can’t believe you are calling him… (apparently this was not his modus operandi and I sensed that perhaps my action was somehow altering his identity, the aspect of his identity that is defined by stopping by unannounced).

Unperturbed by this, amused by the reaction, content after a big meal, homemade donuts, scotch and wine and the opening of Christmas presents, I wrinkled up my forehead to nonverbally express the absurdity of NOT calling. I thought to myself, of course I am calling him – it is 10p on a Sunday night – this is what people do, it is only “appropriate.” My identity is somehow defined by the fact that I alert people to my arrival.

“Kate Settlers, is that you?” YES! It is me, Kate Settlers! I didn’t need to call and let him know that we were coming but I hope he answers the phone “Kate Settlers, is that you?” if I ever call him again. In the end, I think we agreed that it was worth calling just for the nature of the conversation itself.

I accept that I will always be the person that calls but I’m glad there are people in the world that do not. And mostly, I hope there is more unplanned stopping by, as Susie said, I like living this way. I like it even better when I can bring my dog.