Red Ribbons
April 21, 1999 The Chinese say there’s a red ribbon that connects us to the hearts that we’re supposed to find when we come to earth. We find them by a process of elimination when we look around—a gleam of recognition in an eye—chance meetings—scrubbed friendships, scuttled ships that suddenly resurface when we least expect it. Memories we can’t shake—people who love helplessly and in unexplainable ways: the red ribbon theory explains them as well as any other. The third grade friend who won’t go away. My husband’s friend Max who showed up fifteen years ago with a wife we liked and a common sense of things that just seemed to fit ours. I call Susan from ’62 and find we’ve led the same life together, apart during all these years—we say yes to our common friendship. Sometimes I’ve tried to deliberately pick friends based on appearances. When I moved to Springville, I sat in our congregation one bright and sunny Sunday and decided who I thought I’d have something in common with based on