I’ve always wondered when I would chance upon an empty table (or an empty seat!) at Wild Flour Cafe. The place is always packed, and I always end up deciding to just come back some other time, except the time never came.
Until a few weeks ago when a friend, who was visiting from Australia and staying in Makati for a few days, told me that her only available time to meet was over breakfast on a Wednesday morning. Like, 7:00AM early. Needless to say, I grabbed the opportunity and had an amazing discovery—early breakfast is the best time to meet anyone in the city! Pre-rush hour commute is bearable, you’ll be back home before lunch, and yes, there will be empty seats at Wild Flour, or wherever your meeting place is for that matter.
So the date was set, and it was perfect. Wild Flour Cafe, the one in Rada Street. Breakfast, coffee, and a decade worth of stories.
Blogging back in the day
The truth is, this person I met up at Wild Flour is a friend I’ve known for over a decade but I’ve only met in person twice in my life. Her name is Trish, and she blogs at Sugarlace.
We’ve known each other since pre-Facebook and pre-Instagram era, when blogs were like diaries and your blogger friends seemed to know more about you than your friends (in real life) did. Back then, we, hipster bloggers, each kept a blog site and a Live Journal, as if one online diary was not enough. We exchanged links, shared HTML tips, posted comments on every blog post, and traded sidebar banners. We were fearless, we overshared, and we wore our hearts on our (cyber) sleeves.
What’s fascinating about having met someone back from those early days of blogging is, you know so much about each other and know so little at the same time. You watch each other grow only from a distance, and yet somehow, what you do know about the other person is enough for you to take the online friendship offline.
That’s kind of how my friendship is like with Trish. In fact, we tried to figure out how we came across each other’s blogs in the first place (nope, we couldn’t remember), or how we somehow found each other on Facebook when our old blogs expired and her family migrated to Australia (nope, we couldn’t remember either).
What we do remember is, when I visited Sydney in 2008, we decided to meet in person for the first time, in a coffee shop at the beautiful Queen Victoria Mall. It was a cool summer day and we talked about life and God and dreams over cups of coffee (I should probably say “cuppa”), like we’ve been doing it for years.
We’ve kept in touch, thanks to the web. She saw me through my Hillsong journey (the Hillsong Church, after all, is within her arm’s reach) and once in a while she would message me, “So? When are you coming back?”
Meet the Tonels. Trish’s husband Joseph joined us a bit later, and I don’t know but it felt like I’ve known him for years too even if I was just meeting him for the first time.
Sometimes, three hours is all it takes to catch up on 7 years worth of stories. Sometimes, your blog connects you to someone you end up being friends with for the long haul. Sometimes, you find comfort in knowing that in some parts of the world, there’s always someone you can have breakfast or coffee with, no matter how early, and you can pick up where you left off, even if you haven’t seen each other for 7 years.
Thanks, Trish, for breakfast and this over-a-decade long friendship. See you again soon! ;)
Visit Sugarlace
Trish blogs about her love for food, and Sydney, and married life, and everything in between. She loves cooking and baking herself, and blogs about some of her culinary experiments. ;) She and her husband like trying out food places in Sydney, which you might find useful if you happen to land somewhere down under. Here are the links, if you missed them:
Sugarlace Blog / Instagram / Look! She took home some Passion Cards too. :)
“Sometimes, your blog connects you to someone you end up being friends with for the long haul.” Awww…this is so true! I also met a person via Tumblr who also became a friend. :) Blogging was more personal and authentic back then, it was less of branding and promotions, more of sharing with one another. But I guess, it’s still up with the blogger if she’d like to keep the authenticity of her posts? :D
The quick answer to your question is Design for Mankind. :) There goes a blog who fought for authenticity, while also effectively promoting brands she believes in. It’s really a matter of establishing, right from the beginning, what your blog is for. Is it for profit? To simply express yourself? To be used as a platform for advocacy? :) But yes, I do miss those times na I can just blog anything and not fear judgement haha, so apir tayo dyan.