The saying, six degrees of separation, has become part of everyday parlance. It seems, though, that as one grows older that degree can reduce to half.
Here’s my most recent experience. I ask a friend to accompany me to an author reading. I offer her the ticket of someone who has gone south. She knows this person, too, though not through me but from a different association. She is an avid reader and happily meets me beforehand for sushi. I learn that she has been to another author reading at the Reference Library earlier in the week.
At the Heliconian Club, the venue for the evening, we drop our coats on two chairs then go downstairs to the washroom where we encounter a woman who, like me, regularly attends this series. I start to introduce her to my friend, a woman who I know from my old Toronto neighbourhood, only to witness them excitedly proclaim that they met one another earlier in the week at the Reference Library while standing in line to have the author sign their books.
A place that supports the arts
It’s with like-minded people at the places in common where the degree of separation shrinks.