There’s a truism among church-y millennials that Jesus’ most amazing miracle was having twelve close friends in his thirties.
Making friends as an adult is hard. The best friendships of my life have developed around shared interest, mutual admiration, and real need. These conditions were pretty easy to meet in a shared dorm in college or while commiserating over the brutality of certain professors in grad school. Less so when diverse workplaces occupy the majority of waking hours (and evenings and weekends) and most of my age peers are shepherding their own children through playdates and there’s no Caf with a meal plan for easily shared dining experiences. (How did college ever seem difficult?)
So it felt like pure serendipity, a godsend, cosmic coincidence when in the fall of 2016, shortly after moving to Des Moines, I ended up sharing a lane in the pool with a woman with a Bike Friday water bottle. My college roommate’s husband worked for Bike Friday in Eugene, OR. Could it be the same Bike Friday? Could she possibly know my dear friends and goddaughter across the country? It turns out she could and did! They had shared community in Eugene and in Missoula before that. She and her husband were also new to Des Moines. It turns out shared soul-friends are a really solid foundation on which to build a new friendship.
Fast forward to the fall of 2020. The world had already survived six months of COVID isolation and, with no vaccine in sight, we were girding ourselves for a long dark winter. It was a rainy day in September and my miraculous pool-friend and I were out for a long walk. She told me about a dream she had about how to survive the winter. It was a small outdoor book club. Four of us in total. We would wear snow pants and sit around fire pits and talk about books while wrapped up in blankets and drinking hot tea. We would be known as the Des Moines Chapter of the Cliterates. Was I interested?
Was I ever!
Over the months and books that followed (the good, the bad, and the ridiculous), real friendships began to accrue, both as a group and as individuals. We learned about each other’s past and present, celebrated when each of us gained access to the vaccine, texted photos of travel and of children, and slowly and genuinely became a part of each other’s lives.
This may seem rather quotidian and unremarkable. And in some ways it is: four women became friends in their late thirties. But when so much of life clamors for women to witness and share their emotional (and actual) labor free of charge, it’s worth noting when women take time and make space for the friendships that are for and about them. So much life and joy have come from my miraculous pool-friend’s dream.
And there’s another piece worth noting as a person who until very recently was employed in a care-giving vocation. While I’ve never been a friendless person, for most of my adult life I have lived at a physical distance from my closest friends. The Little House on the Prairie crew that bonded during our shared time in Chicago. My college roommate and her family, now in Oregon. Even my family. A vocation in ministry has sent me out into the world to build new relationships through the church (a good and beautiful call). And while my closest people have remained only a phone call, facetime, or text away, it’s not the same as being present. For most of my adult life (outside my marriage), my primary relationships have been formed in, through, and around the church. These relationships have been good and true in their own way, but they are not the same thing as a fully mutual friendship where you can freely vent about the wild thing that happened in today’s meeting and trust that your relationship will outlast your job.
So the Des Moines Chapter of the Cliterates have become my people. And if I had any question about that, the last month has reinforced it in ways that are hard to overstate. When we were going through the first of our many waits of this IVF cycle, I texted them to let them know what was going on and ask their good thoughts. Having a group of friends bear witness to the challenge of waiting was balm for the soul. But then they started showing up. With a robe in bright colors that had accompanied them on their journey to motherhood. With essays on courage. With Mary Oliver poems and snacks and tissues and pregnancy tests and the candle that’s burning as I write this. They came with love and presence and the reminder that I am loved and worthy and a goddamned cheetah. And the realization hit me that for the first time in my adult life, I have friends in the city where I live whose primary connection to me is not through the church. As an introvert whose connectional energy has primarily gone to the church the last thirteen years, this felt miraculous and so so good.
When I tested positive for COVID last week, all I had to do was text. Soup deliveries and gatorade and casseroles started showing up at our door even while their purveyors were in the midst of shepherding their own families through the start of the school year. So much grace. So much glory. So much love.
Lucas and I are not well yet (it’s been a doozy, this variant). But we are so much better than we would have been otherwise. Iowa women know how to show up for each other. And the twelve disciples? They’ve got nothing on the Cliterates.
This was such a joy to read as I take a quick lunch break. I could not love this more. As a fellow care giver, I understand what you are saying in terms of those precious relationships not being exactly mutual and balanced. I struggled when moving to Minnesota then to Virginia and then to Iowa. My friendships began to resolve around the parents of my children, but that is also unique and different. My PWAG group is the closest thing I have had to your Cliterates and I am as grateful for them as you are for your tribe. I am grateful they are there, supporting and encouraging you. I am grateful that you have found this way to continue to share yourself and offer a ministry that fits with where you are in your chapter of life. It is an honor to read your words and glimpse deeper into your soul. So many prayers and blessings coming your way!
All positive energy and good thoughts to you and the Des Moines Chapter of the Cliterates!