These memories are all wonderful — and each one leads to so many more. This picture in particular is poignant. My move to Baltimore in 1996 was … well, it was bold, and I knew no one. As I wrote about, Carey was my first friend, and then I set out, determined to find more. Carey and I worked for a TEENSY TINY company, and I had settled way out in the suburbs of Baltimore. It wasn’t conducive to friendships.

So, I read an article that recommended volunteering to settle into a new place, and volunteer I did. I was young, I was single, I was available to volunteer. There was a wonderful group called Hands on Baltimore that did all kinds of volunteer work — from soup kitchens to home building (shout out Jeff Wilkinson and our work in high school on Habitat for Humanity homes!). They mailed out a monthly newsletter (what can I say, I’m old) and I signed up for every.single.night.

Pam, Barb, Tara, Elizabeth and Anne (seated) and many babies.

Tara and I met at a Ronald McDonald House volunteer night. Barb and I had actually worked together briefly, and reconnected through volunteering. Anne was Tara’s best childhood friend, and came with her. Pam joined us last (rare — she’s usually first!) — she volunteered at The Loading Dock one cold winter day. By then, I was the lead volunteer at the Loading Dock, and Tara, Anne and Barb were there most months.

The Loading Dock is a building materials re-use center, so we were usually muscling around tubs from one corner of the warehouse to another, or moving a new shipment of windows. On Pam’s first month, we were … well, we were clearing a lot out. Too much actually, and the dumpsters got full. So full we needed volunteers to climb in and jump on the trash to crush it down.

Pam and I jumped up, climbed in, and gleefully jumped around, crushing cardboard boxes and other, yuckier, stuff. I knew looking across that dark, cold dumpster in a crappy parking lot that I had found a true friend, and a deeply true friend she has turned out to be.

These four women meant almost more than words can say to me for almost two decades. We started, way way back in July 1999, to meet monthly for dinner. Marriages, divorces, children, my relocation to Washington, D.C. — nothing got in the way of our monthly dinners.

Husbands and children were forbidden (once we acquired them) (well, Pam was married when we met). We met at our houses, rarely. We mainly chose a restaurant, drove (or biked, especially when I was training for my cross-country bike ride) to it, and then laughed so loud and so hard that we were asked to be quiet in restaurants around the region.

In particular, I want to write a thank you note for the five-year retreat we went  to in 2004. We were in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., Pam was pregnant, the first of the bunch (see? always the first, beloved Pam). We had lots of M&Ms. We had creepy neighbors at the house we rented. We had Skip Bo, and waffles, and restaurants, and hot springs, and …

It was a weekend of belonging, of deep joy. A place filled with people who thought each other were irresistibly funny. A place where laughter and crying was perfectly acceptable (we all did both, Pam in particular anguished about her endless, terrible morning sickness). A place where we could tell ghost stories, and then make ourselves feel better. A home.

I miss them so terribly here, across the country, but I love knowing that the dinners live on. And when I talk to Pam (daily) she says: You know, maybe you should try volunteering. Perhaps I will — it made me some great friends in the past.