Loose ties

This evening the five of us went into the city centre - Kim, her boyfriend Manu, Stefan, Minh, and myself. I had been thinking about the idea that three's company and four's a crowd, so what's five?

I guess if you take the five of us, you find five different nationalities: Dutch, French, German, Canadian, and American. That's five different perspectives on life, love, family, identity, and culture. All of us are studying for Ph. D.'s at present, though, except maybe Manu has his already.

With five friends around you can count on someone to pay the tip. You can count on someone to have a laptop to borrow, and someone else to make tea. There is always the chance that four will rule against one or that one will rule against four. You can count on someone to have to leave early, and someone else to keep him company. There are always jokes, and different people have seen the same movies and they have different perspectives on them. One of us does shopping online after trying things on in the store. Another is the happiest person (when he or she is happy) who another one of us knows.

Some of us want to get groceries; others have an early bus to catch in the morning. At the grocery store, the checkout clerk, who is named Elizabeth, is really one of the smiliest and happiest persons I have ever seen -- and she is a checkout clerk in a grocery store that closes at 11 PM and it is 10:30. She has just sent off her application for university today, maybe that's why she's happy. She hopes she gets in somewhere. I hope so too.

Three's a company, it is enough to disrupt any dyad. It's the father and the Oedipus complex. It's the other woman, or man.

Four is the number of grandparents. Maybe some of them are already deceased. Maybe some one lives downstairs. Maybe there's one to venerate and one to despise. You know what it's like at my family reunions? Of course you do, because you've been to your own.

But what is five? It's a crazy number. We toast to social networks. Do we span the globe? Not quite, but maybe it's close enough. To look at us on our bicycles is to understand a certain pageant. Kim is tall and colorful and rides a bicycle that is too small for her. Manu is riding her other bike and wears a grey sweatshirt; he ends up carrying most of the groceries on his handlebars and in his paniers. Stefan is wearing a giant hooded coat and riding a woman's bicycle. Minh is dressed entirely in white and rides a mountain bike that suits his stature, small by European standards. I have a white hybrid bike that routinely does 80 miles a week, and I'm wearing a brown sweatshirt.

Five is not so little as to be familiar. It is not enough to be a social movement. If you were to draw the graph connecting us up, it would look like a star inscribed in a pentagon. We are not just a tetrahedron. We do something more than take up space.

In a sense, there isn't even a "we". Manu will go home to Bordeaux soon enough. Over time, first Minh, then me, then Stefan and Kim will graduate and leave -- at least that's what we hope. Then perhaps we will have friends in many different places around the world. That doesn't just mean a couch to crash on -- who knows.

Five is the number that represents a seed pod. Think of star anise or starfruit. We are ready to be scattered to the four winds. In mysticism, five represents judgment and a certain sense of struggle or opposition. There is always someone there to break any tie. This is more than the simple difference of opinion. On Sunday we are planning to play Risk. Stefan is going to sit this one out. He was somewhat mysterious as to why. Things to do. Maybe he has had enough fun for the week. Maybe he has a date that night.

Five has no more room for universally close ties. We are not a building block in space but perhaps instead the seed pod or seed crystal existing in space time. Perhaps, because you never know. It depends on a very uncertain judgment. Perhaps it depends on Elizabeth. If so, then I think, today, we're in luck.