Meetings.

I attended a writing workshop in March, run by the beaut Laura Jane Williams, just fyi, as if I haven't already told everyone about it in gushing detail...We writers were given this excellent task, to scribble a quick story of...meeting. A meeting. Meeting someone, who has since made a significant impact on our lives. We then had to edit what we'd written of that tale; cut down, focus on certain things, keep essentials and make impact. It was beyond fun, and felt a little bit magic. 

I am forever falling for those first character descriptions in novels, lapping up the fresh new dialogue that then unfolds; I've told you all before about my creating characters first when writing, how I need to make people and let them make plot. It's the same in my life. I've met many people, there have been many exciting inciting meetings.

On the day of the workshop, I wrote about a meeting that could not have been more important to me, and my life, tbh. I won't be sharing that on here – it's saved specially to be used elsewhere. But these little fragment tings you're about to read (I hope, anyway) are, let's say, a small selection from my shortlist. I may write more, but these are just the ones that popped into my head that day in March when asked about A Meeting. 

(These are my friends, in the cafe that other friends of mine own. I hope none of them mind being featured, tbh I just thought this photo was perfection so)

We met decades ago. Decades, plural. But I don't remember much from then, just your name - your initials, syllables. Harsh softness. 

I saw you as I see you now - in a memory, I suppose - when you walked by me one evening on the train. That was a new meeting. Of two new people; of who we'd become. We'd both started college, and you had a girlfriend with a hair style I could only dream of wearing. You passed me in the carriage, getting on two stops after me, and you smiled - raised your eyebrows, recognition, knowing. She led you away as I smiled back. I checked myself, and muttered 'no. You fucking idiot.' 

The night we met, I was shy. I'd just that morning dyed my hair dark again, and it was a bit much. I wore a new top I'd got specifically for 'uni nights spent clubbing'. I hadn't realised it showed just a touch of my lower tummy. You climbed a wall when we walked into town after dark. Show off. We danced and got sweaty in a big group, then sat on the floor of the pizza place, and then ambled home. My home, that is – you walked me back to my halls. You said 'I'm surprised you haven't kissed me yet.' So I did. Later, you knocked my nose stud out. You left before dawn.

Recently, we got the tube to work together. Just gone 6am, both reading – a newspaper and book respectively. As the stops rolled by, I let myself smile quietly at how strange the long passed years can make us – and how familiar things could stay.

My mum saw her midwife through the kitchen window one day, walking by our teeny house. She followed her - to the place at the end of the row, the last semi detach, where she knocked and enquired most eloquently: 'you have a baby! Hi!' And we became friends, at 6 months and 3 days old respectively. We met repeatedly after that, and every time we were that little bit more grown, and at times we were a whole lot different. But the friendship won't change. You used to lie about your favourite colour to make it match mine; I'd draw sad faces on the wet windows in the car as we drove away, and would tantrum at school some days, saying I missed you. 

I met you some time during the school pantomime season - my friend (at the time) was applying your stage makeup and you kept accidentally ogling her breasts as she leaned over you. I didn't think much of you, then. I was blinded by other things - others. Specifically a boy I learned Aragorn's black gate speech for. 

But then we met, again, when we sat beneath a tree just off the cricket field that day. The day you kissed me in front of the Abbey. And I was sold. 

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