Day 6: Solidarity

Maria full of grace.

There's something nice about a formal introduction. A person you know presents to you a person you don't know, physically and actually right there in front of you. The conversation meanders, wandering between the absolute preliminaries and the things-in-common beyond. And if the introducer is someone you see a lot (say, your boyfriend), then there's the added ease of knowing you'll likely see your new acquaintance again too, that their friendship will beget yours. You're not at this on your own.

This is how I met Maria. It's not actually that Danny, my law student boyfriend, knows her all that well; she's a first year student (a one-L as they call them), so maximum time of acquaintance is less than two weeks. But he'd met her already, realized he liked her, and kindly brought her over to the corner to where I'd retreated tonight at the bar.

The event was a weekly gathering of progressive, alternative law students called Solidarity Bar Review. It happens at the same time as and in not quite opposition to a separate gathering of merely liberal law students, called Bar Review. I'd heard about such things, but never been to either.

The bar itself, Thalassa, was pretty darned great. It was sprawling but in a good way, like you think you'd taken it all in and then you'd notice a doorway that led to yet another enormous room. Vast galleries of pool tables beckoned, and these were the classy kind: you pay by the hour. There's a back patio with another table out there, spotlighted like a movie set. The music was loud but the drinks were good and reasonably priced.

The only problem was the herding. As I mentioned, this place is huge. Couches, tables, standing room abounds. But somehow, at least 85% of the evening's patrons found it absolutely necessary to stand within 12 feet of the bar. Walk away, you could do cartwheels. Get close, you can hardly breath.

The absurd crowd situation. Empty, but look at the horde in the background

This is a situation I cannot handle. Not only are crowds loud and unpleasant and likely to make me spill my beer; this was a completely illogical crowd. Why would everyone stand all packed in like that with so much glorious room to move and hear? Because everyone else was standing there too.

Still, I couldn't bear it. Neither could Danny. This may be related to why we make a good couple. We both retreated to the quiet side, and I despaired of actually meeting someone. But then Danny disappeared for a drink refill and returned with Maria in tow, a fellow crowd-disliker. In solidarity, we stood around and talked.

For someone who just moved to town, she was pretty impressively on her feet. This was the first law school event she'd been to because she has so many other friends around (college, etc). She lives with chemistry grad students, always a smart idea to avoid getting sucked in to the small world. As we talked, I felt strangely knowledgeable about the ways of the law school world.

Maria just moved from Colorado, and when I heard that, immediately another kind of solidarity kicked in: the Rocky Mountain states kind. Yes! Here's someone who understands what it is to like winter because it brings beautiful snow, someone who gets high-elevation and having towering peaks in your backyard.

We talked about law school, and about geography, and about writing, and it was easy because I know I'll see her again. She's planning on joining the environmental law journal that Danny's on, and that means many more social events with beer. As she left to go meld into the crowd, I yelled out, "See you around!" over the blaring music, and I knew it was true. Solid.