where one has nothing to do with the other.

Ripening green yellow orange and red tomatoes on every surface of our SouthEast facing bedroom.

Last night I was in a yoga class about an hour away from home. It was pouring buckets of warm rain all day and we are in the tail end of the Harvest so the two factors afforded me the time. My friend Rachael teaches the class and this was the first time I had been. Rachael lives with 3 other dear friends of ours that we don't get to see as often as we like because they are busy, we are busy and the Vermont dirt road system between our two homes makes it nearly a day on foot, ten hours by horse, seven hours by bicycle, and one hour by car. There are no buses or subways to or fro. They are our closest friend in Vermont.

If I had to chose the one truly alarming Fact of Life about moving to a rural community it would be this distance from our friends. It would not be the outhouse, or the molasses-slow internet, or the complete lack of a café, or that nowhere in a 20-mile radius seems to carry the New York Times.  This distance from friends is the one thing I honestly miss about living in the City.

During last night's class Rachael came over to my mat to give my stiff body an assist with a bridge. She wrapped her arms around my back and shoulders to lift me up and I was hit how unusual it is for me these days to be so close to another woman. I have Nick here to depend on, to hug, to laugh with, to fight with, to lean up against while watching a movie, to work with, to cook with, to swim with. We share nearly everything together in our new lives as farmers and I am so grateful for the way our rural life has changed our relationship. We depend on each other and know each other in a way I don't know would have been possible for us in the bustle of the City. But as much as I tease him and love him, Nick is not a substitute for a girl friend, just as I am not a substitute for a guy friend for him.  Having a girl friend who is there to assist you with a yoga pose, or to skinny dip in the pond with, or to go for a hike with, or to bake a cake with, or to lie on the high field with or to simply talk to is something I need in this life. I need a girl friend. I know that sounds soooo sappy, and I don't mean for it to at all. It is a fact. I need a girl friend.

I need a girl friend who doesn't live an hour away. I want one that lives right here in my town. I want one that farms, or doesn't farm. I just want one that loves me the way my old friends love me. It is so impossibly frustrating to make friends at 28 years old in a new community. All of the women (and men) here have their own lives in full swing. They aren't looking to go to see a movie with the new girl. They aren't looking to go apple picking with me, or teach me how they grow garlic, or how to shear a sheep.

The community we have fallen into here in Vermont is beautiful. I don't wish to discount the kindness of the people in it and their warmth towards us. We have been so grateful for their Welcome. But, I miss my girl friends.  I want to be able to walk the 1/4 of mile to Meghan's house right now and see her 39-week belly. I want to meet Lindsay on bikes for ice cream at our general store. I want Ayana to join me for a rainy afternoon at the Vermont Historical Society. I need Fiona there on the running trails behind the farm. I want Julie in my kitchen teaching me for the seventeenth time How to Bake Scones. I want Eve to accompany me and a bottle of wine to see a movie that nobody else wants to see at the little theater in Montpelier. I want Melissa to do my make up and hair and put on a pretty printed dress with me before going to a barn dance.

I fantasize about having my girl friends here in Vermont with me. How full life would be if I could meld the city and the country into one. I love my girl friends and I so selfishly wish I could have even just one of them here. I can't let my happiness, of course, depend on their futures. I need to create friendships with the women who live around me. I just don't know how to do it. I find myself always awkwardly bumping into a gaggle of them at farmer's market, or at the fair, or the tea house in town. We don't have much in common yet aside from gardening, so I always bring the conversation to broccoli or blight or weeds and they must think I am the most profoundly boring flatlander to ever arrive amongst their hills. Why does making friends have to become so much more difficult the older you get? I know it all takes time, that some how some day, something will bring me closer to the women around me and then poof I'll find one day that I do have girl friends here. I am merely impatient for that day and wanting one of them to stop by on this brisk fall Wednesday morning to talk and share a cuppa tea.