In praise of quirky

I have a friend who is all the things I’d expect in someone I love to love. She works in a library. She loves to cook, travel, garden, entertain, and read. She shares my obsessions with podcasts and Internet shopping. Her favorite human is her husband. We talk on Voxer every day, unless one of us is far away from Wifi, and then we pout (well, I do).

She cares about many of the same things I do, too: politics, social justice, spirituality. Her favorite way to unwind is to be outside, hands in the dirt or buns on a bicycle seat. See why we talk on Voxer every day? We speak the same life.

One of my favorite things about her is, honestly, a quirk. She adores 1950s, ‘60s, and 70s sci-fi, especially the original Star Trek series, but also other television shows, movies, and books that I can’t remember the names of because when she talks about them, my mind wanders.

This is her quirk. Her unexpected thing that doesn’t fit with the rest of her. It’s an oddity about her that I don’t share but I love all the same.

I was thinking about this the other day because I think our weird little quirks, the unexpected bits that don’t fit all that well with the rest of the package, are fascinating. And necessary.

Consider another friend of mine, a woman I know through a young woman’s group I used to co-lead. She’s a very tall, natural blond, all legs and arms and long hair. Stunning and smart and stylish, she is a brilliant speech pathologist. And never without a suitor.

Her favorite past-time? Fishing. When the topic comes up, she whips out her phone and starts scrolling through her big-catch pics, her face alight in pleasure. So quirky.

I think about my brother who is master of the quirk. Dude works in IT, traveling all over the continent to boss people and their money around. He’s lots of things I’d expect in a single successful man, especially one who lives for adventure. Any physical activity draws him in, especially if terrifying. His motto is, “It’s not worth doing if doesn’t scare the crap out of me.” (Interesting side note that Dude is getting married in two months. Hmmm.)

And yet? Dude’s dining room table is covered with paint brushes, canvases, paper towels, and dozens and dozens of tubes of paint. Everything on his walls (and some of mine) are his creation. So freakin’ quirky.

Or consider another friend who blogs and mommies and remodels—and adores major league baseball.

I’ve decided that this quirk business is important. Quirks roughen up the evenness of the expected. They are the bumps in an otherwise familiar terrain, and without them, we’d be perfectly okay—but far less fun.

Mine?

I don’t know. I mean, I had my dinosaur phase. When the first Jurassic Park was released, I had a brief obsession with pre-historic animals. My friends’ mouth hung open while I spouted on about velociraptors’ diets and mating habits. This quirk, blessedly, was short-lived.

For the most part, though, I think I’m a pretty predictable human being. Now and again, I’ll do something off the wall like agree to a 350-mile bike ride, but rest assured, that idea wasn’t mine. I know a lot about the Bronte sisters (and really all things British lit.), but doesn’t that fit a little too nicely with my education and vocation? Yes. So not all that quirky.

Other little oddities, like writing poems and binge-watching BBC also aren’t all that far off the track. Crosswords and jigsaw puzzles? Not weird in context of the rest of my package.

Y’all.

I need a quirk.

What’s your quirk? Please share. #inpraiseofquirky