Noodle soup

MONDAYS IN KORONALAND. Not into them. Esp when it's one of your very best people's birthdays and you can't see her or hug her or sniff her or ANYTHING.

Before ALL OF THIS, *waves hand broadly at the whole world*, I'd suggested we have a little meal for her birthday. I'd book a half day off. Instead, I'm currently in my Dunnes Stores workout pants and a grey jumper. I've just finished another endless working from home day. My hair is in a bun. I am not fit for public consumption. You would not recognise me. I am also absolutely not fit for our little lunch in a tiny Italian place we like. It's not fit for us either. And do you know what I had for lunch instead?

WELL, I DID NOT HAVE SOUP. That is because I tried to make soup. Instead, I did not make soup. No, I burnt soup. Turns out, you can burn soup! Every day is a new lesson. Our pot is still steeping, because I somehow managed to turn it into a black hole. Dark matter, where my soup used to be. How I am SUCH an adult, that cannot cook soup? I then had boiled eggs as emergency replacement lunch. So, instead of afternoon wine and charcutérie with one of the best people on the planet, I'm alone. In sports wear. With a runny egg in a roll. Rage eating.

I call her Noodles. I think it's because one of my other best peoples nickname is Poodles. But her name begins with an N, thus promoted to Noodles. This is the rationale behind most of my nickname creations. Total chaos. I know! I'm such a weirdo.

She transferred into my school when I was in fourth year. She came from A WHOLE OTHER COUNTY. Very exotic. She was always so nice to me. She's so nice to everyone, actually. I'm sure you've heard how we became friends before. (I always go on about my same stories. Ask Wife!) ANYWAY, HERE SHE GOES AGAIN! Zoom back with me now, in my story time machine! It was transition year! I was young, not learning how to successfully make soup! We were on one of our 'outings'. Experimenting with our 15 year old lives. This time, we were sailing in Dun Laoghaire pier. She was my sail partner. And we were actually deadly at it. Like somehow, we had found each other! Across counties! And we had become the best sailing partners of any 15 year olds ever. I enviously looked on as others failed. Plummeting into the ocean. Mirth seeping out of their hairdos, splayed across their faces. Noodles is very sensible and was not on board with the possible capsize I was angling for. (YES. THANKS! I DID USE ANGLING THERE PURPOSEFULLY! THANK YOU FOR NOTICING, I HAVE A MASTERS.) Anyway, she eventually (forcefully) obliged. We wobbled into the sea, and we wobbled out as friends.

The beginning of our friendship is a good metaphor for how we've maintained a 22 year friendship.  To this day, we're a good team. She helps me to sail along in my wavy life. Keep steady. Enjoy the nature. I force her into brattiness, get her to capsize from her sensibility a little. Wobble into the sea with me.

Her fella is very nice. He commissioned me to paint a photo he'd taken of her, which was begging to be a painting. He's a lovely, thoughtful guy, who really wants to mind her, I approve! Anyway, as I painted her, MAYBE I'm OVERTHINKING... BUT, I started to realise just how significant and symbolic this painting is. She's standing amidst some high grass, on a windswept day. The backdrop is a bright blue sky. She's in her third trimester at the moment, of baba number 2. The wind tries to swoop her tiny frame away.  (Noodles is smol!) She holds firm. Smiling at us. Holding her little future person between her tiny hands.  This baba will never know that 'before' place I mentioned earlier. As I painted her, it was a very different feeling to the norm of now. The joy, hope and love in that picture is what beams through. Ripe, ready and joyful about the future. To me, it symbolises the strength of the people I love. Staying powerful as things beyond their control sweep through. Instead, she is brave. Hopeful. She is looking straight at us. Looking to the rich future that awaits us. Holding it. Keeping it safe. Noodles is looking at us through that painting, and she's bringing us hope. And as she has many other times, she's turned a day of dark matter, into a much brighter one.

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