Annie had a full calendar last weekend. Saturday was the baby shower. The mother-to-be is her ex-partner’s niece. Annie hasn’t been with Tony for a decade, but she still considers him  family, especially with his health and money problems. Recently she’s been in touch with his actual relatives about him. So the invitation to the shower was understandable.

On Sunday she promised to be with Shaun. He’s been part of Annie’s life since he was a teenager, back when she worked in the advocacy program for Oakland kids. Now he’s  approaching 30, and Annie is still counseling him about health, work, and money. They see one another regularly. Shaun’s closest friend had a mother in the ICU at Highland, not expected to recover, and Annie agreed to spend the afternoon with Shaun and Lelani at the hospital.

Before the events, she told me she wasn’t looking forward to either. Afterwards she had nothing but positive feelings to report.

She’d had two hesitancies about the shower: its location and her age. The event was in a private home in a small delta community. Annie doesn’t often drive out of the inner bay area, and she’s notorious for getting lost, flustered, and then more lost.

I encouraged her to use the GPS in her car, but she resisted. Then I told her to print out driving directions from the Internet. It turned out she did both. She had no trouble finding the town and the house.

She was correct when she assumed she’d be the only attendee of grandparent age, but it wasn’t a problem. Annie is a vivacious soul. Everyone made her welcome and she got into interacting with the other guests. She adores young adults.

She said the food was good and plentiful, the company was great, and thank goodness they didn’t have to play any games. The only drag in the afternoon occurred when she left. She couldn’t find her car.

She wandered up and down the block before returning to the house. Then she asked, somewhat timidly for her, that one of the men accompany her on the search. She was sure she’d just forgotten where she parked, but if it was something else, like someone taking her car, she didn’t want to be alone.

Immediately she was supported. Three people insisted on going with her. It took them about half an hour to find the car where Annie had left it, and they were with her, cheerful and chatty, every step of the way.

“I tell you,” she concluded when we spoke on the phone Monday. “I felt I belonged there. Like part of the family. It was so warm and wonderful.”

Regarding Sunday, Annie was aboard because she wanted to, as she told me, “be that sort of person.” She wasn’t looking forward to time in the hospital, and the seriousness of the situation was sobering – it was clear to everyone except maybe Lelani that her mother would die within hours – but she was determined to be there for Shaun and his friend.

Her morning-after report was glowing. She said she walked into the room and straight into grateful hugs from the youngsters. In the couple of hours she spent with them, she managed to whisper some words to Lelani that helped Annie when her own mom went. “Oh honey,” she murmured, “you did what you could. You have been a good daughter. It’s okay to let her go. She’s been through enough.”

Annie waxed enthusiastic the next day. “I felt so included,” she said to me. “It was all about family. So right. So real.”

My dear friend is an emotion junkie. She majored in sociology in college, had a career in counseling, and she reads novels about families. She tries to embrace the Italian-ness of Tony’s family, the Latino flavor of much of her Oakland life, and especially the black culture with which she associates. My short blonde friend often reminds me of Ruby, the older black neighbor who provided early childcare for my kids. “Girlfriend,” Annie will call me, or “Child,” she’ll start in with big Shaun. In the last year or so, her public laugh has developed into a full-fledged cackle. I think this is another case of black cultural adoption on her part. I’m tempted to point it out to her – I can tell by the look on other restaurant patron faces that they find it as jarring as I do – but how? That would be worse than trying to clue a friend in on body odor or bad breath: worse because if effective, it would make the friend self-conscious about her own laughter. Not a good idea.

When we spoke on Monday, I was pleased for Annie. She’s retired, financially comfortable, and not busy enough. She’s never had a husband or kids. She’s close to her married sister and has been as involved in her nephews’ lives as a nonresident aunt can be, but the boys no longer live in the area and she doesn’t see her sister more than once a week. We get together about that often, and she sees Shaun every week or so too, but she has many empty hours. She spends more time reading than I can, and based on her casual reports, she’s engaged in a file organization project that has gone on for a couple of years now.

I was pleased to hear about her weekend. I know how she thrives in an ethnic group, and she got to experience powerful moments with two types in two days. She can live on that stimulation for a while.

While Annie was busy in new venues among emotional young adults, I was home alone. I had a quiet two days. And savored them. I like time at home in general, but last weekend was doubly precious because I’d been away the previous one, visiting my daughter, her husband, her three boys, their dog. I’d had lots of love and a bad mattress, warm hugs and boring food. I’d returned to a little crisis in the office from which I’m trying to retire, which meant I had to spend three partial days there instead of my customary one. I was pleased to have quiet days at home, without conversation, underwear, or shoes.

After our Monday phone call, I still had time to think. I’d be heading back to the office the next day, and I told Annie I’d help her fetch things on Wednesday for the Thursday funeral (Lelani’s mother passed away five hours after the Sunday hospital visit), but I had Monday to myself. It was when I walked to the market and back that I hosted the critical thoughts.

It seemed to me that Annie is too much of a spectator. She loves watching sports on TV, she acts like she’s a member of the team, and she never plays. Then it occurred to me that she’s like a life spectator too; not acquiring spouse or kids or career or even a hobby of her own, but acting, with her assertive almost draconian opinions about relationships and work and child-rearing, like she’s a primary participant. I was critical at first, and then sorry for her, and finally I started wondering what, if anything, I could say or do to entice her into action.

At which point, I stopped walking and started laughing. I looked around and noted I was on one of the prettiest streets of my route. I realized that I was reviewing my friend’s weekend, from a distance, preparing to write about it. I was about to describe a woman who was experiencing emotional life second-hand, but where was I? Yet more removed. The fact is, Annie left her house, interacted, embraced, conversed, laughed. All I did was think.