(no subject)
I received a beautiful post card from Kari while she was on her adventures.
"Dearest friend,
I hope that home is treating you well. the road is being fare to me. I
adore this life. Too bad I have to go home. Yesterday I saw the biggest
cemetery that I have ever seen. 20 million people are buried there.
Rows and rows that stretch to meet the city."
Recently, I found an old friend on facebook. His name
is Andy Hedrick. We were the best of friends from the time we
were moving about on hands and knees, up until we could ride the bumper
cars at the state fair alone and not be afraid. I still have old photographs
of us, wearing sparkly hair wigs, tiny giraffes and moons painted on our cheeks, and
candied apples in our sticky hands.
I remember staying at his house after preschool. He lived next to a big pond
with lots of swans and geese, and once, a goose neglected one of her eggs.
We thought we were rescuing it, and took it inside to stay warm, burying it under
woolly blankets and cotton fluff. I think we both hoped it would hatch right away,
with just the right amount of tender care, our little hands so careful not to drop it.
And if it did hatch we would play to be the parents, and teach
him or her to fly and swim.
But the egg never did hatch and the momma goose must have known this all along.
Only, we were too young to understand.
we took it close to the water and left it there, hoping another momma would
come and care for it the way we couldn't. That day, we learned
a humbling lesson. We learned that nature doesn't necessarily do what you expect or want it to do.
Still, that didn't stop us from running out to check on the egg every day for the next week, hoping
something had changed while we weren't looking.
Andy taught me a lot about life. And I taught him some things too.
I taught him how to spot a green anole on a leaf, set it
on your shoulder and rub it's chin until it's eyes closed.
We caught many and ran with them on our shirt collars, occasionally
checking to make sure they hadn't run away. But sometimes, they would
and we'd have to find two more to play with.
Andy taught me how to play hide and seek and stay as quiet
as a mouse. He taught all the best hiding places and showed
me how to paint animals on my cheeks, and his.
Andy has grown up. And so have I. His round face
has become stubbly with shadow.
His bright blue eyes are filled with deeper things now.
Things that I see and understand, too, but that I wish i didn't.
He knows more of the world, and it shows in his handsome face and blue eyes.
He has become tall and is no longer troubled by tangles in his hair. he is a ski instructor and a college student.
And even though he's lost the sticky candied apple fingers and his eyes aren't quite as blue,
he still has the same playful crooked grin I remembered.