Cuddling

Was flipping through old journal entries today and found this from October of 2006:

FABULOUSEST OF FABULOUS REALITIES!*

Setting: Kyra, Beckah, and I were sitting on the porch and talking. It was nearing curfew, so Kyra got up, said good-bye and went on her way home. As she was walking to her car, a random guy walking down the street passed her and said, “Hey, where are you going?” Kyra answered, “Um, I’m going home.” The guy said, “Well, what am I supposed to do?” Kyra suggested that he “go sit on the porch and make out with Liz,” which he said he didn’t want to do because he’d never done that before. Kyra suggested the alternative of cuddling, and got in her car and left. The fellow walked up the porch steps and said, “What am I supposed to do? Just cuddle?” Rebekah and I opened our arms and welcomed him onto the couch with us. In the subsequent cuddling conversation, we learned that his name is Tad and he’s from Arizona. We told him our names and the three of us cuddled for the few remaining minutes until curfew, when the RA came and kicked him out, at which point he left, after pretending he was from a different country and had never heard of curfew.

And that is how Beckah and I came to meet a total stranger by cuddling with him.

Man, I had forgotten all about that. I was good at…just going with the flow in those early college days. I don’t think we ever even saw that guy again.

* When I was a junior in high school, I had this English teacher that changed my life. She had us record and celebrate what we called “Fabulous Realities,” which were those bizarre and beautiful events and incongruities that make you see humanity differently. I still record those to this day.