Always Yes

My dear friends, the ones who will likely know me years from now, the ones who are totally unsurprised by my insistence that Hallowe'en should be a STAT holiday, my absolute devotion to wearing toques after Labour Day and my horrified, purely sociological fascination with the psychology behind the anime fantasy genre and how it simply would never have arisen in our agrarian-based North American culture because we just don't find fish sexy...

Anyone? Anyone at all?

Those are the ones who said yes.

Yes is a very powerful word. It is permission and much more than that, it is acceptance. 

Yes is...

... agreeing to stop the car so that the load of people I am designatedly driving home can play in a senior's fitness park at 2 AM, then joining in and cartwheeling insanely across the ball fields. 
... watching boring TLN programming/medical/relationship dramas and/or paying to see Sex and The City in the theatre and not commenting out loud about the lack of zombies or explosions. Or plot.
... epically awesome Hallowe'en parties and equally epically boring New Years ones.
... joining a charity to spend time with a busy friend.
... planning a theme for nearly every get-together, just to have a reason to wear heels and a boa.
... hours and hours of Spoons around my kitchen table.
... surfing on a day that is too rough and rainy to surf and seeing whales as reward for that foolishness.
... understanding that dogs are family.
... patiently sitting next to people watching Twilight as a drinking game in the back of a theatre and totally not punching them or anything. 
...  rescuing me from a prom date disaster by faking a foot injury and going to Tim Horton's instead. 
... agreeing that St Patrick's Day is a far better day on which to celebrate my birthday.
... a cartoon-marathon/cereal/pajama party for no reason. 
... breakfast for supper.
... climbing aboard a friend's tiny little ocean-bound speed boat to go buy oysters we could just as easily get at the market, despite my fear of sharks, drowning, and sharks that would drown me. Twice.
... a six hour, not a two hour, hike.

Yes is important. When you say yes to opportunities, you can expect to wind up somewhere unexpected, in my case often covered in glitter and wondering where all the feathers came from. More importantly, when you say yes to people, you find friends you never hoped to have and would not trade for all the handmade wool toques in Nepal.  

Sadly, I have occasionally missed it when someone was saying yes in the only way they knew how, and some of the people to whom I have said yes have replied no and I don't hold it against them.  Some have joyously, wonderfully, said yes to me in return and we are the better for it, despite decades or distance.

I said yes to a random group of people chance tossed together a few nights ago and now we aren't strangers anymore.  The surprising fact that the common denominator turned out to be 'Jesus Christ, Vampire Slayer' is just one of those coincidences which the Universe holds in store for those who say and hear yes. Isn't that wonderful?   

For friends who reminded me that before we had to put our house on the market and be all grown up and stuff, I used to say yes more often. Thank you for the reminder. And for Neighbour Lady, who I hope will say yes someday. If not to me than to someone else, someone she trusts not to judge her penchant for Sponge Bob pajama pants or her curious twisty-bun ponytail look that makes her ears stick out.