friend sixty.

when i lived in olympia and did americorps, friend sixty, who i will refer to here as “beth meyer,” worked in the office, doing really impressive organizational things i didn’t understand. i loved working for her because she had nikki mcclure pictures, a great laugh and sense of humor, and i really felt like she Got Things, in terms of race and class and oppression. shy admiration impeded my ability to become actual real life friends with her, but our conversations about our lives when i’ve called her for recommendations for new jobs has made me think that if i was still in olympia, we could meet each other as peers and that would be awesome.

oh my stars.

good morning.

it’s one in the afternoon.

i’m bleary-eyed and foggy after a week-long trip to the pacific northwest, going broke on donuts and coffee and cute independently produced art. my back is cramped from too many types of beds and my sinuses are going crazy.

but the trip was amazing. it was amazing to see all of the wonderful places i used to know so well. olympia has really barely changed, and then as we were driving out of seattle in the pouring rain, i thought that i could have just as easily wrapped myself in coffee and KEXP as i did when I was 23 years old.

we saw people, but just a select few. those selections always make me feel guilty, but if i saw all of the people i wanted to see in all of the places we spent a day and a half, i would be even less functional today than i am, and i would have been a basketcase all trip, trying to coordinate schedules and transportation. instead, it was just 1 or 2 sets of folks each place. and that was perfect. except for that whole leaving people out thing. someday. someday there will be infinite time to see all of the dear ones. (that’s what facebook is for, right?)

i miss it all, you know. that’s the trouble with me and all the moving i’ve done. there’s always someone to love, but there’s also always someone to miss. there are places that stay achingly the same and there are places that change beyond recognition so you’re afraid of going back. and there are people who hug the same and people who talk the same and people who have lost weight and people who are now in love and people who still knit and people who make you laugh until you cry and people you want to stay up talking to past 3 am and people who have known you since you were a person who embarrasses you now… and i’d like to have you all in my pocket or as my upstairs neighbor, but instead you are flung out and scattered like the stars.

friend twenty.

i’m not sure who started it. but at one point, i was living one of my dreams with friend twenty, who i will refer to here as alison r. the dream was the dream of random packages of things being dropped off at each other’s door. it only lasted a minute, but in that minute i became a proud owner of a padded manila envelope filled with a chair wheel, stickers for macheezmo burritos, a tiny notepad and matching pencil, and other treasures, that had appeared at my doorway after the sound of running feet and a car door slam. in my dream world, i would interact with everyone in this way.

we were both part of a crew of young people doing service for even younger people in olympia, washington. neither of us had done much of it before and our tales were about epic screwups and hilarity ensuing.

it is the middle of the night when i write this and i think it’s a little choppy. and it’s embarrassing, just a little bit, because i also associate friend twenty with literature. during a dark time (literally, because it was olympia and those winters are fuuuuuun-ky, and emotionally), she loaned me a sark book to remind me of ways to get through. and during a training that she co-led, she brought us through a visioning sort of exercise using calvino’s if on a winter’s night a traveler.

she’s a good one– a smart one, a goofy one, a sincere one, one with a giant smile and saddish eyes, and one who cares a whole awful lot.