Hannah and I met on a lovely fall day in 2014 in a parking garage, well… outside of a parking garage. We were both students in the Landscape Architecture program at Iowa State University, and our class had been assigned to sketch the landscape around the Memorial Union Building. A classically handsome building with no shortage of worthy viewpoints one could pick for a landscape drawing. Oddly enough, we both found ourselves in the ditch behind the parking ramp with pencils in hand. I don’t recall which one of us was there first, but for the sake of the story, she sat next to me. Of all the ways I’ve been acquainted with people in my life, sitting in a ravine and sketching the side of a building turned out to be the most important. We made small talk, which evolved into basic life questions, shared laughs and then quiet moments of comfortable silence. There are two things that stick out in my head about that day. Trying to capture the way the sunlight was poking through the leaves in my drawing, and how quickly the time passed while talking to this person I had just met. 3 hours later we finished our drawings, and I had made a new friend. 11 years and many shared moments of comfortable silence later, that friendship has evolved past basic life questions to deeper conversations and well, more basic questions about dinner. I don’t know what came of that drawing, but I do know that I picked the best spot to sit that day. :)