ONE
It was a resolution, to try something different. In the spirit of discovery, rather than giving something up. Adding to myself, not taking away. I'd go alone - me me me. It was heaving. Mainly older white-and-white-haired people, which I expected. Also children, people of colour, and non-binary people, which I hadn't expected. Someone shook my hand, asked me if it was my first time. Maybe there'd been a flush of newbies. It was considerate and welcoming. I was only slightly hungover. We took our seats in the bright room with high ceilings. And then silence. Long, deep silence. Awkward silences are empty, begging. This was clear and soothing, like water. I realised I was crying when my cheeks were wet. Then I was sobbing, and I couldn't stop. The air would build, someone would stand and speak, typically offering up a question, then take a seat again. I didn't have any tissues so I wiped my face with my hands and shirt sleeves. New people were invited to share. I stood, shaking, and said how grateful I was to be present for this, how I'd never experienced anything quite like that before. Understanding murmurs and nods. When the official silent time was done, the kids were brought in and asked to share what they'd been doing. They'd been talking about silence. That set me off again. Afterwards, tea and biscuits. A petite woman came up to me, on a slant like a crab, looking up at me with uncertainty.

"I'm an overseer. I check in on people who come here. Are you - are you all right?"

Though I flustered away her concern, I spent the walk home thinking how nice it was to be asked that by a near-perfect stranger.

TWO
They remembered me from the week before. I managed not to cry, getting to tea and biscuits less dehydrated. I chatted with a few folks, including a woman who spoke in sharp jabs about her traumatic childhood in apartheid South Africa. I couldn't make my tea cup sit neatly in the saucer. Someone asked me how I found about them and I mentioned Six Feet Under. They nodded a little blankly. I gravitated towards Kate, probably because she was about my age. She had a nose ring. She'd be arranging get togethers for the younger Friends. I could sign up to the email newsletter to hear more. I loved that they called themselves Friends. I loved that they had no distinct hierarchy, just jobs to do that they rotated. I signed up to the email newsletter, squinting through the late winter sunlight.

I sat in the Wetherspoons with a large glass of red wine and their book that I'd ordered to arrive speedily. A guy sat a couple of tables over, smiled. I smiled back, full of the shine that had been given to me, then turned back to me book. He ordered chicken wings. He made a weak pass at me. I did my best to let him down nicely. An eternity passed. He ate his chicken wings looking right at me.

Oh, how badly I wanted it to be an hour ago, back in that room, safe in the vast, unknowable silence.

THREE
No tea and biscuits. It was the monthly lunch. I blew across the skin of my homemade vegan lentil soup. I joked with Kate about my hangover. She told me about the annual convention, about participation in activism. I admired the way they seemed to always be on the right side of history. Just good people doing what they thought was right. As she looked at me openly, warmly, I knew I was getting a little crush on Kate. It felt cute, fond, pre-teen. Pure. I wondered when I'd have to say that I didn't believe in the magical properties of Jesus, that I liked him as much as the next Palestinian socialist. How I couldn't bring myself to believe in a Christian god and all that entailed, that it felt unfair to sit alongside people who did, in their sacred space.

How much I needed this and how I couldn't let myself have it.

MARCH
I tried to meet with Kate a couple of times but she had tested positive. I was on the Friends' email list for a good couple of years, deleting whatever came in as soon as it arrived in my inbox. This itchy little reflex.

Then, it was easier to hide than to say, no, thank you.

AND MORE
Now, I spend a lot of my time in rooms with near-perfect strangers. We offer up different things but that silence can be found. Some don't like that part but it's the part I yearn for, still still still, the endurance and the peace. And I can't find it alone.

Through the strange way the internet waves, I had an exchange with a writer from Six Feet Under. Turned out he had trained as a minister and written most, if not all, of my favourite episodes. I forgot that he was just a man and because of that, I stopped talking to him. This is not one of those stories, and I have many of those stories. See, he was good and kind but I still agree with the tenet of "don't ever meet your heroes."

Including God.