The bread story

I don't have much going on. I did find out today, however, that 1.) my services will not be needed at opera camp this summer. I have a slightest feeling that the director of the camp is pissed because I wasn't going to have my school fork over the $700 to have her "opera on the road" come out to my school. and 2.) Blockbuster has reinstated late fees. I discovered that when I got a letter from a collection agency. I, of course, called the local store to bitch. The manager replied, "well, we did post it." I asked if they did the mailings on the massive scale they did when they got rid of them, or put enormous signs in the windows saying, "THE START OF LATE FEES! THE END OF MORE!" or even bothered to put anything up on their marquee? ALL things they did when they got rid of them for a while. Of course they didn't. He offered to cut the late fees in half, but I'm still pissed and want them all gone.

So I'll share a happier story that I did not pen.

I've mentioned her before and probably will lots of times if I continue this blog.

In college, my freshman year, I made a friendship that has forever changed who I am.

Her name is Jill. And in addition to being my best friend, she was also my only girlfriend (EVER) and the first person I told I was gay.

With time and distance (she's now in New Mexico) we've drifted apart. Though when we talk, it's like we've haven't missed a beat.

She's an excellent writer and for the longest time I was afraid to send her e-mails because they paled in comparison to the vignettes she almost daily sent me. But she guided me along and helped me be a better writer (among being a "better" everything)

These little spaces between thoughts? You can thank her for that.

There was a time when she knew more about me, and me about she, than any other person in the world. We had a strange and immediate connection and, sometimes, instead of having lots of deep conversations, we'd discover the deeper sides of ourselves by happenstance.

One of my biggest flaws is that I am perennially looking for the greener grass. I never realized it until a conversation we had at the local Hy-Vee in Waverly, IA.

She wrote the story down and was planning on using it in a novel about two characters named Sam and Dan. My middle name is Daniel. I have no idea why she chose Sam(antha) for her character.

In any case, I'd thought I'd share one small part of the story as told, so eloquently, by Jill. I had shared some of the stories, by word of mouth, with my friend Ted, who always cast a doubtful eye on some of the stories I told.

What follows is an e-mail version Jill sent me after I told her my problem of retelling our story.
-Kevin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sweetie, if you need to, you can tell Ted that I said every word of this story is true.


The Bread Story.

Here is the defining moment of our lives.

Picture us: we are standing in the bread aisle of a grocery store in Iowa. I reach for a loaf of Amana whole wheat, a delicious, hearty, perfect bread, as Dan reaches for this small, pebbly little loaf of something with berries. I know for a fact that if we were to flash back to a vision of Dan's kitchen table twenty minutes previous to this moment, we would see a third kind of bread, mostly eaten. I turn to him as he begins to lift the loaf to say, "Are you dissing my bread?"

Amana whole wheat is my all-time favorite bread. Ever. It's perfect. Good crust, hearty without being grainy or chunky. No pieces get stuck in your teeth. Energy providing. I'd suggested it to Dan a few weeks previous to this moment for his power lunches at his new job trying to be a summer construction worker, and he'd loved it. And now here he was, buying a new bread. With a third at home.

"Huh?"
"Well, are you dissing my bread?"
"No! I loved that bread."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Oh, I like trying a new bread every time," he says, casual as hell.
"Every time?"
"Yeah."
"But what if you find a really great bread, Dan? Wouldn't you want to spend as much of your life as possible enjoying a great bread you really love?"
"What?"
"What if you move, and you can't find the great bread in your new town? What if they discontinue this bread and you've squandered your time on other breads instead of appreciating a really great bread when you had the chance?"

And Dan looks at me and says, "But what if there's a better bread?"

And my heart dies a little.

"Excuse me?"
"What if there's a better bread? And what if you find a bread that's not so great? You could tell people to stay away from that bread. Oh Sam, wouldn't you feel good about knowing you've saved someone from a bad bread?"
"Well, that's silly. I would just point them in the direction of my bread, and that way they could know they're getting a good bread."
"What if you move?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"What if you stay with your bread for years, Sam, and then one day you come to my house and have a different bread and you have this amazing awakening in which you realize that you didn't even know how sick of your bread you really were, and you've wasted your life on a boring bread. And here I am! A bread expert, ready to guide you through your journey to a new bread. What if as a bread lover with a knowledge of great variety and taste, you could do the same for another person? Wouldn't that make you feel good?"

I sigh.

"Listen, let's just get some peanut butter, Sam."
"Okay, as long as it's creamy."
He sighs and walks down the aisle.

While we are not yet willing to admit that this conversation is about something other than bread, a strange thing happens that seems like a sign. At the very end of the aisle, a sad loaf of plain store brand bread slinks off its shelf to the floor landing at our feet. I pick it up and try to shove it back into the perfect bread-shaped hole it left among its mates, but it does not fit. It just keeps slinking back to the floor.

Neither of us knows what this means, but we both consider this as the beginning of our story.

jkn