Minnesotans are notorious for closing their circle of friends relatively early in life. So you stay friends with people you met in high school or college or early in your career, but making new friends after your mid to late twenties is relatively rare. People who move to this state as adults run into the wall of “Minnesota nice,” whereby everyone is polite but in a completely superficial way.
I’m trying to break this trend by being a native Minnesotan who is making new friends in my mid 50’s. I had lunch with one of our neighbors on Friday. She had invited me to a coffee gathering of neighborhood women at her house back in September. Everyone who attended was nice, but I felt like the hostess was someone who could become a real friend.
She’s an upstate NY transplant, but has lived in the area for 17 years. She also started painting just recently, which I find utterly fascinating. We had a terrific lunch and connected over our mutual artistic aspirations. Hopefully the start of a new friendship.
Today’s feature is actually my least favorite of the set I plan to submit to the MCFTA for their abstract exhibition. I sent all ten to the artist who taught my abstract painting class and it was one of her favorites. That is the beauty of art.