I don’t remember exactly how long ago I met tikva; I know it was a long time after I met her before I started to feel like I knew her. But I remember being impressed with her very early on (as well as having a bit of a from-across-the-room crush on her). I think my first impression was probably of her bubbly enthusiasm and energy. And it’s contagious! She collects awesome, interesting people around her, and her energy infects them until they’re all having fun. In my experience, tikva is a walking instant party.

I’m actually finding I’m having a hard time putting how I feel about tikva into words; her presence and her energy are easy to recognize, but hard to describe. The things I want to say are going to be misleading. For instance, she’s not always happy (although she usually has been when I’ve seen her). But she’s always engaged. She’s always real. She doesn’t do things by half-measures; she’s always at least 100% in the moment and in the spirit of whatever she’s doing. Conversations with her feel like they ought to have labels on them that say something like "Contains 350% of the US RDA of human contact".

And you know, in a lot of people, this level of energy and intensity would feel like a mask; it wouldn’t feel real; there’d be something kind of off about it. Not with tikva. It’s real. Yes, her joy and delight really are that big. I imagine her sorrows and fears can be big, too, although I haven’t seen very much of them. But I feel like her judgment and wisdom are big enough to match her emotions. Lots of people have big emotions in ways that get in the way of talking to them, that sort of preclude working with them in realistic ways. With tikva, I don’t feel that way at all; I feel like the big emotions and the delight in small things and the enthusiasm she has for her friends and sweeties and the kindness she shows – and for that matter, the pissed-offness which comes out when it needs to – are all driving forces for good. tikva is an awesome force of nature, and there are few people I would trust more with that power than tikva.