“So how did you meet your girlfriend?”

“Oh my gosh, I haven’t told you this story?”

“I’m sure I’ve told you this story. 

Okay well forgive me if you have, you need to tell me again!”

(We are walking and talking along Berth Two, headed to Creek Street to get the borrowed car. It’s 8 o’clock and all the tourists are cleared out). 

“So we are at this festival back home [Colorado]”

Brie is short with short brown hair, she always wears those sandals that I hate but that everyone outdoorsy in the history of all time wears. But they are just who she is, it works. Sometimes she wears a teal fanny pack. She has arrow tattoos along her fingers, her great-grandfather’s name tattooed along her leg, a picture of one of those trick guns that a banner pops out of and on the banner is a heart instead of the word “Bang!” She has a round face, a smile from Heaven and eyes that crinkle up when she laughs. She is not on the social media and she is a vegan. She wears rings along all of her fingers, some of which were her grandparents and great-grandparents. She is from Southern Colorado. 

“I’m out with all of my friends and she is out with all of her friends.”

We both work on the dock, so we have enough time for an empathetic smile and sometimes a quick check-in chat amidst directing the tourists to their buses or the boat. 

“And all of the sudden, we catch each other’s eye from across the room [even though they were outside, we are still going to say room]”… 

She recently gave me something after Nana passed. “Okay, I have something to give you and I know you are going to think it is hippie dippie shit but I am going to give you a stone. I think that stones have energy and healing properties and whether or not you believe all that (at this point we are walking under the Ketchikan tunnel, kind of dark and echoey), I want to give you this rose quartz. She handed me a pink stone, smooth and soft and about as round as a quarter in circumference and diameter. It has some small marks in it. “I’ve been carrying this one with me for about 2 years, and I would like you to have it. I wanted to give you one and when you said your Nana loved pink, I knew you should have it.” 

…”And we made eye contact and slowly started backing up at the same time, still looking at each other. Then we walked over to each other and just started talking. We were sure we hadn’t met each other before. And that was literally how it happened.”