Make New Friends, Keep the Old

I was absent through October and November, posted three entries at the start of December and then disappeared yet again. Until someone (ahem) felt compelled to pen a short verse yesterday about my relapse.

Playing catch-up with individual stories from the past weeks is out of the question. But there are two that definitely warrant blog time....

Tania (aka White Girl in Prague) returned home to Australia for good almost two weeks ago. Prague is a transient city; you know it within a few months of being here. But when I thought of Prague in the long-term Tan was always in the picture—trips for 2008, soup sessions at KavaKava, hunting for cafes with good desserts, exchanging Salsa moves, kicking it up at Solidni, and so much more waiting to be explored. Then life happened (doesn't it always?) and Tan decided her time in Prague was up.

I wanted to scold her: “You're leaving? You can't leave! What about all our plans?” (Actually, they were mostly “my plans” and I intended to get her up to speed about them later....) But people move on, and instead of getting into a funk about it why not look at the big picture? So I chose to be thankful for her friendship instead. Memories of our good times together would always evoke smiles, and another thing was certain: I would have a good friend to call on when I visited Australia.

As one friend prepared to leave, a new one made an appearance.

I woke up one morning and discovered that I was not the only Tinu in Prague. C'est imposible! The revelation arrived via email, from a comment left on my blog. My first thoughts were: Who is she? And is this city big enough for the both of us?

According to the message, “Tinu” had googled me after someone at a bar mistook her as the writer of this blog. Funny tidbit: she ended up getting free drinks from the guy as a result. (Golly, if I knew I had such generous fans I'd toot my horns a bit louder. Lord knows I could use more free booze....) That aside, I was mucho curious about this namesake. I wanted to meet her right away, but I was also wary—I've been excited about meeting new people before, but only to walk away sometimes feeling disappointed about a lack of connection or an unexpected defensiveness.

“Don't try to see her right away,” someone suggested, which made me roll my eyes. What is this? A date? The Rules? Still I recognized where the advice was coming from.

Eventually, the two Tinus met up for dessert on a Sunday evening at Cafe Louvre, and chatted for almost three hours. She is also Nigerian (of course) and lived in Finland for five years, which I found so impressive that I decided to shelve my backup plan of ordering a hit on her.... I had one ready just in case. (Can you guess which Tinu is a bit crazy? Ha!)

Meeting Tania was one of the highlights of 2007; before her I wasn't so sure about making solid friendships in Prague. But it is possible (maybe not always easy) and I look forward to my current friendships evolving for the better and to the new ones ahead.

I'm going to end with a line from a school rhyme that I remember singing as a little girl in Nigeria. Serendipitously, it popped into my head as I was typing this entry.

“Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other is gold.”