meet marianne.

allow me to introduce the world to this wonderful woman who took me all around Boston and showed me a great time.

i met marianne (she goes by "Mar" now) in high school - she was the senior class president and i was the senior class secretary. it's hard to believe that we kept in touch after all these years because we weren't exactly the best of friends, that's not to say that we weren't friends, because we were, but not the kind of friends that hung out outside of school. so, you can imagine some of the reactions we received, from mutual high school acquaintances, when they learned i'd be flying 3,000 miles across the country to visit her. i have to admit that it was somewhat of a spontaneous decision but she extended a welcoming invitation and sensing her sincerity, i accepted. why not?

we had met every once in a while when she visited cali (and by every once in a while, i mean every once in two years!) and she would surprise me with a phone call here and there. she served in AmeriCorps for a couple of years and called me once when she was helping out in New Orleans for the Hurricane Katrina relief. i couldn't help be in awe of her as she told me where had been and what she had been doing. i admired her so much for doing something different and imprinting her mark in the world. (seriously, how brave is she??)

needless to say i was excited to see her. more than that, i was happy to be a part of her world in those 2 days because even if i couldn't be as brave as her, i could be in the presence of such courage.. and that alone did more for me than i could've known.