Answering the Call

Sitting in my closet yesterday, I was looking through a picture album of friends and thinking about how near and far they are to me now, both physically and emotionally.  I am lucky and love-rich that many of my nearest and dearest for the last 10-20 years are people I can still call in the middle of the night if need be, no questions asked.

The way friendships start and end at different measure is strange.  I have had fast friends and have also cultivated closeness with folks over the distance of many years.  The latter have turned out to be some of my most valued and true friendships.  I have lost touch bit by bit with people with whom I was once inseparable.  Also, I have had the uneasy experience of quickly dropping out of or being dropped out of someone’s life.

A couple of weeks ago I had a friend come into town for a short visit.  She was a neighbor of Bobaloo’s when he and I were dating.  Bobaloo and I would often sit on the deck having beers and listening to tunes and she and her husband would come over after work.  Slowly but surely, after three years she became quite a close friend.  She was someone who became unwaveringly thoughtful, compassionate, and protective towards me.   I offered the same friendship to her.  I look back at those times on the deck and think of a happy, happy stretch of life.  Meeting her was providential circumstance.

We have seen each other a couple of times in the last seven years, the last being four years ago.  Marriage happened, babies were had, and moves, school, and everything in between began to take up the adulthood of our lives.  Eventually, even our infrequent phone calls came to an end.  Our friendship became a yearly Christmas card.

She came into town a couple of weeks ago for a conference and we made plans to get together and catch a few drinks downtown.  Even though some years had passed since I saw her last, I was more excited than nervous to see her.

So, after Bobaloo and I navigated our way to a parking spot in the city and entered the crowded bar I sent a text letting her know I was there.  After a few minutes a familiar embrace from behind my shoulders was followed by a familiar voice.  We found a place to sit.  Pictures were shown of children, school and work updates were exchanged, and some of the more somber happenings of our lives were shared.  Life had moved on, but not between me and her.  We picked up just where we had left off, chattering away.

We headed to a tavern later and smoked cigarettes on the patio.  I apologized for not being better in touch and told her I missed her.  She told me that even though we don’t speak on the regular that she knows she can always call me when things shake down and that I will always answer.  She thought it was an unspoken understanding between us two.

I am lucky to have the kind of pals who will answer my call.  And it’s nice to know now, that I am that friend to someone too.

I don’t get a whole lot happier than when I am camping.  Truthfully, give me any reason not to bathe and I am in.  Gross?   Yes.  Liberating?  Without a doubt.   Did you know you can use the cardboard oil funnels at the gas station to pee standing up?  That tip is more helpful in nasty bars or in said gas stations than in nature I guess.  Good to know.
 
Tent camping is my preferred mode of roughing it.  If I could live in a tent for three months out of the year I would be a proverbial happy camper.  I am a lot more comfortable outside than in.  I am not sure what that’s about but it has always been this way.  Maybe in the open air I am restful.  Who knows? 

Pops would take David and me up North when we were little kids.  I was more interested in reading my books and futzing around than fishing.  David would tell me about the constellations at night when the sky seemed forlorn.  I learned how to find the satellites, slowly making their way along the path.

The quiet and niceness of the moment and the universe fleeted as morning would stir.  It was nice to be still.  Now, the lights of the city compromise the night sky and I can get squirrely.  A couple of weeks ago I looked up and felt that quiet happiness and it was nice.

I have a theory about camping.  If you can set up a tent with your significant other without fighting, it is meant to be.  If you can’t, it is going to be a long weekend and a quiet car ride home.

Our tent broke last summer and we have yet to replace it. I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything.  Except that it’s broke.

I’ll get a new one next year. 

Until then, here’s to camp fires, kabobs, beer, and dirty jokes.

And stillness.

I’ll never forget when she took me to the Benjamin Franklin store.  The imitation stained glass hummingbirds were shimmering in the sun.  It was hot out then.  I was staying with her for a week while my parents were in Germany.  We rode in her truck and sang along to Dolly Parton, me only pretending to know the words.

She bought me and my brother Count Chocula cereal.  Her husband had salted peanuts in a giant jar near his recliner.  She had a woodpecker toothpick grabber on her counter.  When you pushed his beak down, he would grab a toothpick.  When you’re six, that is really something.

Her basement was scary.  I never liked going down there but if you wanted to play with the Lincoln Logs you had to.  She had poker chips, old spools, antique keys, and an automatic card shuffler that she let me play with.  She never yelled at me for making too much noise and although I was a quiet girl, she called me her little chatterbox.

She lived on a lake where I made mud pies and every once in a while she would give me a minnow to play with.  I was careful with the minnow, rolling it the tin full of muddy water.

When I was older, she built a cabin.  I went on the roof with my dad and he let me hammer in a shingle.  There was plenty of space to wander around and an outhouse.  In the cabin she told stories, we listened to the Indian radio station, and played countless games of Scrabble.

We are both older now.  Life is not fair, but has been especially been harsh towards her.  Her body has been encumbered with the effects of Rheumatoid Arthritis for years.  Ever since I have known her, anyway.  She has carried on with more physical pain than anyone I have ever met.  She has also carried on with a stoic sense of humor and a brave front.  Her life has been full, in the face of physical limitations.

She has been fighting particularly hard these last few weeks after an ugly car accident, never wavering.  I don’t know what makes her stronger than the rest of us.  I don’t know if she has been fighting her whole life and it is her innate instinct.  I don’t know if it is her resolve.  I don’t know if it is her faith.  I don’t know if she understands something we don’t.  Maybe it’s a combination.

I know she is getting better.  I know before too long, she will get back to enjoying nature because that is her nature.