Finding Beauty in Unexpected Places: The Baja Bean and Other Local Establishments

In October, I went to the Blackfriars Conference in Staunton. After our rock star panel was over, my Mary Baldwin friends and I might have gone to a local watering hole (okay, it's a total dive) called The Baja Bean (which we lovingly call "The Bean"). And we might have had a few drinks. And I might have co-founded a theatre company. I need to look into that.

The next night, this process might have repeated itself. And I really have no idea why, but I started talking to this woman behind me, who was also attending the conference. I would really love to remember how this conversation started because a) I don't just start talking to people and b) I especially don't start talking to people at bars at 2 a.m. Maybe I was just enthralled with this woman's lovely Texas accent, but we just kept talking. It turns out she co-founded an all-female theater collective dedicated to producing the work of William Shakespeare. I was trying to find an all-female theater company dedicated to the work of William Shakespeare to write about in my dissertation. Soon, I was completely oblivious to the people I was actually there with. Susan and I just kept talking. "Hey, have you ever done a production of The Tempest?" I yelled at one point (and yes, I did yell; it was a bar after all). "No," she yelled back. "But we could!" We talked some more. "Hey," she said, "I wrote a prequel to The Tempest that focuses on Sycorax. Could you write about that?" She gave me her card. I got up the next day certain that it was all a dream. But then we ran into each other again and had coffee. And then we had a long phone conversation weeks after I came home. She directed me to the Weird Sisters Theater Collective's Web site. I read their mission statement. It aligned with so many of the things I wanted to discuss in my dissertation. My advisor okayed the change, but strongly encouraged me to "have a back-up plan" in case this all fell through. I made that plan, but knew (yes, worse-case-scenario me *knew*) I wouldn't need it.

Holy crap. This was real. This was happening. Whose life works like this?

As I have been privy to this group's emails over the past few months, I am continually inspired by their community and the careful thought they put into their productions and their relationships with each other. They have taken me on as their "resident scholar" with such warmth and generosity. I leave for Austin on Sunday to be with them for the final rehearsals of Sycorax, and I can't help but think I'm on the precipice of something. I'm so excited to meet these women and learn what they have to teach me.

Yet as I stand on the brink of new female friendships and wisdom, my collective of wise women here in Iowa is undergoing a seismic shift. This weekend my dear friends Joanne and Sarah, with their newly minted doctoral degrees, leave to start new journeys. I've written about what my Iowa friends mean to me before. I've found a tribe here. I've always known that our ideal lives together would have to change. But it doesn't make it any easier.

Today our collective of friends gathered for a work date at a local coffee shop as we have most Thursday afternoons this spring. We ate large plates of toast. We took photographs. We didn't do any work. It was, as always, lovely.

I will miss them very much. But in some ways, I am glad that this all intersects with my trip to visit the Weirds. It's a reminder that some of the most treasured relationships in our lives can start in the oddest ways - a conversation about Anne of Green Gables, a request to go talk about long distance relationships, or at the Bean at 2:00 a.m. Life works in unexpected ways, and it's only in embracing these twists and turns that we discover the beauty of each other.