The Long Way Home

Two years ago, late in December, I drove the 2700 hundred-odd miles from Little Rock to Seattle. It was an amazing trip. I'll never forget the snowy passes at Albuquerque, the baked red of Sacramento, or the lush dampness of Oregon. And all in five days: it was like surreal cinema. However, as I tell my students at Lingua Espresso, Little Rock is a long, long way from Seattle, too far to drive and too expensive to fly often. So my trip back three weeks ago was the first one since December 2006.

Probably the most fun I had--the most enjoyable time--was with my oldest friend, Amber Denise Jones, nee Carter. First, seeing her lovely old home and then, going out to her mother's to ride horses. We had her youngest daughter Rory (6) with us, and we spent most of a day meeting horses, petting horses, working horses, and riding horses. Several people were in and out: her mother, Mary Ann; her Uncle Billy; the farrier, who trimmed hooves; Doc, the big yellow lab; and assorted barn cats. We took a lot of pictures, and originally, I was going to do a blog for my students about horses and all sorts of words you only encounter in a horse barn (e.g. curry, buck, comb, bit, saddle, reins, crop, bareback, canter, trot, gallop, break, etc.) However, just before we left, I was looking at the pictures hanging in the barn office, and one of them stopped me right in my tracks.

It was an old newspaper photo of Amber, taken sometime in her early teens. Her hair was still long and thick, and hanging loose around her shoulders. Even in the photo, I could imagine the green glint to her hazel eyes under the heavy dark brows. Her gaze was somewhat somber and intent, away from the camera, and down toward the horse she was riding. And she looked to be wearing shorts over a bathing suit, which is probably right, since she spent a LOT of time in those days helping her mother teach swimming lessons at the family pool. And I turned and almost blinked at the Amber standing next to me, the Amber of 25 years later.

Not that there is anything wrong with Amber now. She's a pretty woman, more slender and defined and self-assured than the young teen in the photo, which is true of most of us. Her hair is probably still thick, but she's worn it super-short for a long while now, and she's let it go the color it now wants, which is gray. She smiles a lot more now, and I do too, so that makes me happy. And she's a mother now, with an oldest daughter just shy of the age she herself was in that old photograph.

And yet I got a gut-wrenching sense of love and loss when I looked at that photo. For all the things that we were and wished and wanted and all that we gained and lost and became. A bittersweet feeling. Just like going back to a place that you left long ago for some very good reasons, and having the dual feeling of wanting to both embrace it and blot it out. My friend, like all of us, is still who she was, and yet different. Time happens to us, moment by moment. And for some reason, I really wished for a moment to go back and lie down in the sun next to that olive-skinned girl with the thick dark brows, the tender heart and the sharp tongue. To drive down a mountain road in that low-slung orange datsun that used to spit the center of the steering wheel out into her lap at the least provocation. But that girl lives only in my memory. As the old song says, "you can always go home, but you can never go back."

It was Amber who finally talked me into Facebook. I'm incredibly cautious about the word "friends," that people seem to toss around so loosely. So far, I've been contacted by a lot of people who want to be my "friends." Some of them are complete strangers, and I can't figure that one out. Some went to high school with me, but as I didn't really talk to them then, and they didn't give a crap about me then, I can't see how we are suddenly friends now. I'm not trying to be mean or saying it can't happen, I'm saying it doesn't happen just because we were once in the same place at the same time. And I get "friend" requests from all kinds of people who went to the same schools, worked at the same companies, or are maybe even "friends" of someone I happen to know. Does that make them my friends? Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think so.

Amber has been my friend since we were twelve years old and first met over a basketball in gym. Since she thought she wanted to be nun and I thought I wanted to be a poet. Since we first held on for dear life to Thunder and War Cloud. Since she ran lines with me in junior high school basketball. Since we rolled our eyes at each other in Madame Freeman's French class. Since we were smart and unique and loving and not at all popular. And even when years have gone by without a visit or even much of a conversation, when we do come back together, it's like we never left. Just because she isn't a constant physical presence in my life has never made her less important to me. Some things go beyond time. I call that "friendship." I also call it love.

The long and winding road,
That leads to your door,
Will never disappear.
I've seen that road before . . .
It always leads me here . . .
Lead me to your door. (The Beatles)

NOTE: The posted picture here is Amber at around age 17.