The Whole Shebang
Screw updating the last one.
Joshua Tree was an epic. It needs its own entry.
~~~
We started relatively early. Jason had rolled over to my house while Paula and I were saying our goodbyes. We threw my stuff into an already over-packed truck (and this was prior to grabbing Hannah's stuff), hopped in the car and headed to Hannah's. We had to chill for a minute while she packed and we waited for Sky to call, which wasn't much of an issue. Shane was home, and talking to him is always a pleasure.
We finally got a hold of Sky (after a few interesting phone-tag moments) and grabbed him at the college 8 bus stop. Falafel & gyro was our dinner, we swung by the gym for a few extra pieces of gear, swung by my house after debating whether or not we should bring the guitar (unanimous yes), grabbed gas, and rolled.
I dozed in and out the whole ride, with sketchy moments of listening into conversations and mumbling my piece. Every once in a while I woke to give the driver a massage and keep him awake, whomever it was at the time, and change the music. The drive passed so quickly, I hardly remember it. I only ever truly slept once, however, while we rolled over the ten into Yucca past Los Angeles.
~
The sun was rising over the desert town. It looked swept on with Indian paint. I was a little bedraggled, had a nice crick in my neck. The Denny's parking lot was a warm shade of purple and pink. Denny's was dark green and even darker green carpet. We drank so much coffee.
We got beer on the way into the park. So much beer! A bottle of Jameson as well. Then we let the tires start rolling to Joshua Tree.
It started gradually. We saw the desert scape, but it was dotted with houses. They thinned like watercolors, but persisted right until the state park line. There was no booth operator - we rolled straight past the stop sign and into one of the most amazing places I've ever been to.
The mountains started like piles of dirt in a giant's constructions site. Over time, as we drove, it appeared as if the wind blew off the top layers, little by little, to reveal larger rocks, more solid forms, more appealing faces and structures.
We ooh'd and ahh'd like little kids in a candy store. Our noses smooshed to the glass, our mouths were open. Even Skylar, who had been there just four weeks prior, was grinning so wide his round eyes were starting to squint.
Each rock got grander, each site was more and more beautiful. We couldn't take it anymore.
Pulling into Hidden Valley campgrounds, we knew we had found a haven. We drove around until we found someone leaving their campsite and snagged it, then immediately racked up on zero sleep in twenty four hours and, wired off of pure intent, headed out to the Old Woman.
Oh, the climbs! Sky led the first pitch, slowly and shakily. Tradding, I realized, is really fucking scary. But he sent the first pitch of the trip without fail, albeit slowly. Hannah followed, clearing the gear, and I toproped it next. Jason sent the next lead, setting up a toprope from some raprings that were conveniently bolted at the top. It was a quick and easy climb for the topropers, but difficult for Jason while he was setting all the gear. I climbed last, then immediately went up the right face to a slabby, beautifully difficult problem. We pegged it at an outdoor 5.9, which felt more like a 5.10b.
After a point, we realized with much chagrin that we had been out all day (climbing from eight a.m. to four p.m.) and had skipped lunch. We hurried into town, bought a few essentials (including a watermelon Jason said would help chase away the effects of sunsickness), returned to set up camp, and cooked up a fine meal of vegetable stir-fry and brown rice. Hannah, by the way, is an amazing cook. We ate like royalty the whole trip thanks to her. During dinner, Sky and I proceeded to get completely wasted off of the bottle of Jameson while Jason and Hannah kicked back, played guitar and drank beer. Sky set up his inflatable mattress, tucked it until a boulder, and we promptly passed out.
~
Well, everybody else did. I had learned late that my sleeping bag was not only weaker than the force of the night chill, but it also didn't zip up. Sockless, wearing capris and a hoodie, I shivered and shook the whole night wedged between the mattress and the boulder. Finally, when the sky started lightening, the air was noticeable a few degrees warmer. I got up to smoke a cigarette and watch the sunrise.
It was breathtaking. A slow crawl of light seeped over the dirt-pile mountain ranges and past the monolith of Cyclops Rock. The sky thinned, broke anew, as if it had been washed. A rabbit sat with me while I smoked, wrapped in my seemingly useless sleeping bag, until I got up to use the bathroom and he skittered back under the rock.
I gave up when the sun cleared the mountain. I was cold, and my teeth were playing staccatos inside my skull. I opened up Jason's truck, curled up into the back seat, and fell into the deepest sleep I've experienced in a while.
Didn't last long. Everyone was rousted by nine, and breakfast was oatmeal with banana and dried cranberries. We racked up and walked to Intersection Rock, a stones throw from camp and the Old Woman. There, I cleared a pitch that Hannah had set, a thoroughly easy but terrifying (due to its location) crack that slanted up the side of a second level sit-down. When we reached the top, we spoke to a few men as they set up their rope for us to rapel from. Jason and Sky went to work on a multi-pitch 5.7 on the other side of the rock. I napped at the bottom of the first pitch, sleeping for the better part of an hour if not more on the rope bag that had been left in the dirt. I awoke to terrible sunburns, and the news that the boys were just finishing setting up the rap and were about to come down.
We ate watermelon and sandwiches, avocado and cheese for me, PB&J for the others, and discussed our next course of action. We settled on Cyclops Rock, and headed out to finish some pitches before the sun set.
Upon arrival, Jason taught me to lead belay on a class 4 ascent, which worked wonderfully except that the caves were covered in bat guano. The wind had started to pick up, nipping at us more than we cared to think about, so Jason and I headed back to camp while Hannah and Sky rock out on the second pitch of a 5.8.
They weren't back until well after sundown, right when we had started to worry. Apparently a belay device had been dropped, and alternate ways down had to be found. Poor Hannah confessed in me that she had to wait at the top, freezing cold and miserable, and had started to cry to herself because the wind was so harsh and she hated the waiting. But she was back. We settled on dinner and beer.
After dinner, Sky had an idea.
"We should socialize! Let's go visit our neighbors, talk to 'em and have a few brewskies!" We had ran into some neighbors earlier in town the day before who seemed really cool - a group of five men, all about 40 or so in their years, who were buying a few cases of beer at Stater's.
But we shut him down that night. Tired, we wrapped ourselves up (I had decided to sleep in the truck) and passed out as quickly as we could, which wasn't quick at all. The wind, throughout the night, was picking up and getting worse.
~
Oatmeal rousted me in the morning. The sun was already high enough to clear the mountains, which meant I had slept in. Packing up the racks, we rolled out to find Short Wall at Lost Horse, a set of rock walls a fair bit away - far enough that we decided to drive. Our directions were terrible. The map itself didn't lend any help. We eventually found it, high up on a bluff that could only be accessed by clambering over a giant set of boulders up a steep hill. Hannah and Sky were off like a rocket. Jason and I idled a little, racking up and tying down all our gear, and headed up to hop up the bouldery hill.
Oh, fuck! The wind - it nearly shredded my skin off with its teeth. Nothing had been that cold since Olympia. We did two simultaneous pitches next to each other, Jason leading a much easier one since I was still practicing belaying, and Skylar sending an interesting face crack problem. But the cold, it was trying to ruin us. Hannah and I were numb and chilled to the bone, and stingy where our skin had been scorched. By the time I followed and cleared Jason's climb, my whole body was numb. Touching the rock was excruciating. Every scratch felt like the nip of a set of needles.
Originally I hadn't wanted to clear the climb. I wanted to leave the gear and downclimb, given that our route was so easy. But Skylar assured he'd set up a rapel system that wouldn't leave gear behind. When Hannah and Skylar were back on the ground, Jason and I realized we weren't going to be able to get down.
Shit. It was time to simo-climb. Hannah went to scout a safe downclimbing point while Jason and I set and undid protection across the entire top ledge of the Short Wall. It was frustrating and painstaking, and we were exhausted by the end. But Jason's optimism never let up.
"You always learn something new, right?" And I had. And I was grateful for it.
While hopping down the boulders towards the car, Hannah had dropped our guidebook down a crack between two boulders. We pondered our options, and decided after chilling out for a moment at the car (with beer, naturally), we'd head into town and grab another book before bouldering.
We lounged for a while. I always tried to keep my face turned away from the sun, given the sting it caused. The wind was less aggressive, seemed less vindictive down at the bottom of the road. We each had a fairly chilled beer, warming our jackets in the undiluted sunlight, and talked. Talked and talked. Acid trips and old drinking stories, herbal medicine, eye contact. Hannah made a statement that eye contact was the sign of a strong will, and how avoiding it showed a sense of cowardice.
"Strangers don't make eye-contact anymore," she said. She stared heartily into mine while saying this. I felt defiant, and grateful. I felt like it was a sign of respect, this challenge. We stared at each other directly until we were both satisfied in the placement of our wills. A silence had started to rise like bread dough before we were done.
The conversation called for a second beer, and more drug stories. I watched Skylar talk, not quite listening, but enjoying how my beer was cold but my hands no longer were.
For a split second, I was his tongue. It was a moray eel, blunted and slim in the pink sea-rock cavern of his mouth. It twisted in a way that felt utterly inhuman. I shivered. I needed to move more, focus less. I felt strange on that road by Lost Horse.
So we jumped into the car, made a pit stop at a corner store for more beer and cigarettes. We dropped into the climbing store right at the entrance of Park Drive. They had so many wonderful things! I was lured by the survival equipment, beautiful camping knives and survival bandannas that were way beyond my budget. Instead, I got a much-needed pair of socks and some bandannas with star charts and knot-tying how-tos on them. Perfect.
The cashier flirted heavily with Skylar, and Hannah and I watched with a giggle. I fingered the fabric on expensive climbing clothes, also gorgeous to boot but fully functional, and told myself "someday..."
Heading back, we could feel the wind. It refused to be ignored. But we were determined to get some bouldering in. We went behind Cyclops Rock to try and wrangle some in, but it was much too cold for me. I wound up heading back to camp first, where I went for a stroll. Heading back get Jason's keys, I ran into them walking back and followed Skylar had apparently left shortly after I did.
Jason, Hannah and I skipped up to the top of our backside rock, a humongous beast of a thing with more boulder and faces than Michael Jackson had plastic surgeries. It loomed over the whole campground. Upon reaching the top, we discovered Skylar with his arms wrapped around his knees, trying to ignore the wind while watching the sky fade to dark.
"Where were you?" he asked me. "I came back early to watch the sunset with you!" I made up some lame excuse about how thirsty I was, and how I had trekked back. It really hadn't been an excuse, but I wish I had been at the camp when he had showed up.
Hannah pulled out a few beers from her backpack and passed them around. We fought our urge to run and shiver from the influence of the wind, while drinking cold beers that should have been refreshing but simply added to the chill. We talked politics, religion, and about how stupid it was when people talked politics and religion. We discussed the sunset and stopped just short of dissecting it. And finally, when our noses and fingers were too numb to remember, we skipped back down the rock to our camp.
"Let's go find those neighbors tonight," Sky had mentioned, and he and I headed out while Hannah and Jason cooked dinner. Our rallying call was simply "Cool neighbors! Where aaaaaare yooooooouuuuu?" until we got a reply. A group of five flagged us down, plied us with the most expensive delicious whiskey I had ever tasted (it was so smokey and smooth, damn you awesome Irish folk!), beer and tortilla chips. We learned a few names and a few stories, but mostly I simply remember Jeff (the handsomest in a dorky, glasses and giggles sort of way, I wanted to kiss him all night) and Bill (the most talkative, who kept complimenting and exclaiming over my character). Bill was a number cruncher who retired early after making bank, and Jeff was an ex-competition climber who had apparently competed against Sharma some fifteen years ago. The three other gentlemen were kind enough and fun enough, but not as talkative or memorable. I wish they had been.
We spoke for a while about a great many things before Skylar and I returned back to camp to eat dinner. We left them with an invitation to swing by and visit, and they swore they'd take us up on it.
Dinner was polenta and veggies with cheese and marinara, and so so delicious. We hunkered down with a few beers and chilled for all of a few minutes before the neighbors swung by. I pressed the guitar into Bill's hands, Skylar pressed a pipe into Jeff's, and the instant friendship bloomed a little more. Bill was savvy at blues guitar, and Jeff would double over in giggles at almost anything.
We were told stories or marmots, and weird things one does when their arm falls asleep. I talked a great deal, usually making Bill make some exclamation (usually, "where were all the girls like you when I was twenty?!"). The guitar was passed between Bill, Hannah and I a great deal.
It was passed to me at one point, and I started singing Boats and Birds to myself. By the second verse, all conversation had hushed and suddenly, I had an impromptu audience. I hadn't realized that anyone had been paying attention until the voices stopped, and then felt sheepish and a little spotlighted. But I played the song through, since it seemed right enough to do. When I finished, nobody said anything for a while.
"Thank you for that." Bill spoke first.
"That was...amazing. I felt it right here," Sky said, pointing to his chest. "And I know that sounds corny and ridiculous, but I mean it."
I was a little taken aback, slightly embarrassed. But also flushed with what felt like appreciation. I had caused a moment, and a good one. Something we all got to share.
We wrapped up the party shortly after. I retired back to the truck, falling asleep quickly for once.
~
Joshua Tree was an epic. It needs its own entry.
~~~
We started relatively early. Jason had rolled over to my house while Paula and I were saying our goodbyes. We threw my stuff into an already over-packed truck (and this was prior to grabbing Hannah's stuff), hopped in the car and headed to Hannah's. We had to chill for a minute while she packed and we waited for Sky to call, which wasn't much of an issue. Shane was home, and talking to him is always a pleasure.
We finally got a hold of Sky (after a few interesting phone-tag moments) and grabbed him at the college 8 bus stop. Falafel & gyro was our dinner, we swung by the gym for a few extra pieces of gear, swung by my house after debating whether or not we should bring the guitar (unanimous yes), grabbed gas, and rolled.
I dozed in and out the whole ride, with sketchy moments of listening into conversations and mumbling my piece. Every once in a while I woke to give the driver a massage and keep him awake, whomever it was at the time, and change the music. The drive passed so quickly, I hardly remember it. I only ever truly slept once, however, while we rolled over the ten into Yucca past Los Angeles.
~
The sun was rising over the desert town. It looked swept on with Indian paint. I was a little bedraggled, had a nice crick in my neck. The Denny's parking lot was a warm shade of purple and pink. Denny's was dark green and even darker green carpet. We drank so much coffee.
We got beer on the way into the park. So much beer! A bottle of Jameson as well. Then we let the tires start rolling to Joshua Tree.
It started gradually. We saw the desert scape, but it was dotted with houses. They thinned like watercolors, but persisted right until the state park line. There was no booth operator - we rolled straight past the stop sign and into one of the most amazing places I've ever been to.
The mountains started like piles of dirt in a giant's constructions site. Over time, as we drove, it appeared as if the wind blew off the top layers, little by little, to reveal larger rocks, more solid forms, more appealing faces and structures.
We ooh'd and ahh'd like little kids in a candy store. Our noses smooshed to the glass, our mouths were open. Even Skylar, who had been there just four weeks prior, was grinning so wide his round eyes were starting to squint.
Each rock got grander, each site was more and more beautiful. We couldn't take it anymore.
Pulling into Hidden Valley campgrounds, we knew we had found a haven. We drove around until we found someone leaving their campsite and snagged it, then immediately racked up on zero sleep in twenty four hours and, wired off of pure intent, headed out to the Old Woman.
Oh, the climbs! Sky led the first pitch, slowly and shakily. Tradding, I realized, is really fucking scary. But he sent the first pitch of the trip without fail, albeit slowly. Hannah followed, clearing the gear, and I toproped it next. Jason sent the next lead, setting up a toprope from some raprings that were conveniently bolted at the top. It was a quick and easy climb for the topropers, but difficult for Jason while he was setting all the gear. I climbed last, then immediately went up the right face to a slabby, beautifully difficult problem. We pegged it at an outdoor 5.9, which felt more like a 5.10b.
After a point, we realized with much chagrin that we had been out all day (climbing from eight a.m. to four p.m.) and had skipped lunch. We hurried into town, bought a few essentials (including a watermelon Jason said would help chase away the effects of sunsickness), returned to set up camp, and cooked up a fine meal of vegetable stir-fry and brown rice. Hannah, by the way, is an amazing cook. We ate like royalty the whole trip thanks to her. During dinner, Sky and I proceeded to get completely wasted off of the bottle of Jameson while Jason and Hannah kicked back, played guitar and drank beer. Sky set up his inflatable mattress, tucked it until a boulder, and we promptly passed out.
~
Well, everybody else did. I had learned late that my sleeping bag was not only weaker than the force of the night chill, but it also didn't zip up. Sockless, wearing capris and a hoodie, I shivered and shook the whole night wedged between the mattress and the boulder. Finally, when the sky started lightening, the air was noticeable a few degrees warmer. I got up to smoke a cigarette and watch the sunrise.
It was breathtaking. A slow crawl of light seeped over the dirt-pile mountain ranges and past the monolith of Cyclops Rock. The sky thinned, broke anew, as if it had been washed. A rabbit sat with me while I smoked, wrapped in my seemingly useless sleeping bag, until I got up to use the bathroom and he skittered back under the rock.
I gave up when the sun cleared the mountain. I was cold, and my teeth were playing staccatos inside my skull. I opened up Jason's truck, curled up into the back seat, and fell into the deepest sleep I've experienced in a while.
Didn't last long. Everyone was rousted by nine, and breakfast was oatmeal with banana and dried cranberries. We racked up and walked to Intersection Rock, a stones throw from camp and the Old Woman. There, I cleared a pitch that Hannah had set, a thoroughly easy but terrifying (due to its location) crack that slanted up the side of a second level sit-down. When we reached the top, we spoke to a few men as they set up their rope for us to rapel from. Jason and Sky went to work on a multi-pitch 5.7 on the other side of the rock. I napped at the bottom of the first pitch, sleeping for the better part of an hour if not more on the rope bag that had been left in the dirt. I awoke to terrible sunburns, and the news that the boys were just finishing setting up the rap and were about to come down.
We ate watermelon and sandwiches, avocado and cheese for me, PB&J for the others, and discussed our next course of action. We settled on Cyclops Rock, and headed out to finish some pitches before the sun set.
Upon arrival, Jason taught me to lead belay on a class 4 ascent, which worked wonderfully except that the caves were covered in bat guano. The wind had started to pick up, nipping at us more than we cared to think about, so Jason and I headed back to camp while Hannah and Sky rock out on the second pitch of a 5.8.
They weren't back until well after sundown, right when we had started to worry. Apparently a belay device had been dropped, and alternate ways down had to be found. Poor Hannah confessed in me that she had to wait at the top, freezing cold and miserable, and had started to cry to herself because the wind was so harsh and she hated the waiting. But she was back. We settled on dinner and beer.
After dinner, Sky had an idea.
"We should socialize! Let's go visit our neighbors, talk to 'em and have a few brewskies!" We had ran into some neighbors earlier in town the day before who seemed really cool - a group of five men, all about 40 or so in their years, who were buying a few cases of beer at Stater's.
But we shut him down that night. Tired, we wrapped ourselves up (I had decided to sleep in the truck) and passed out as quickly as we could, which wasn't quick at all. The wind, throughout the night, was picking up and getting worse.
~
Oatmeal rousted me in the morning. The sun was already high enough to clear the mountains, which meant I had slept in. Packing up the racks, we rolled out to find Short Wall at Lost Horse, a set of rock walls a fair bit away - far enough that we decided to drive. Our directions were terrible. The map itself didn't lend any help. We eventually found it, high up on a bluff that could only be accessed by clambering over a giant set of boulders up a steep hill. Hannah and Sky were off like a rocket. Jason and I idled a little, racking up and tying down all our gear, and headed up to hop up the bouldery hill.
Oh, fuck! The wind - it nearly shredded my skin off with its teeth. Nothing had been that cold since Olympia. We did two simultaneous pitches next to each other, Jason leading a much easier one since I was still practicing belaying, and Skylar sending an interesting face crack problem. But the cold, it was trying to ruin us. Hannah and I were numb and chilled to the bone, and stingy where our skin had been scorched. By the time I followed and cleared Jason's climb, my whole body was numb. Touching the rock was excruciating. Every scratch felt like the nip of a set of needles.
Originally I hadn't wanted to clear the climb. I wanted to leave the gear and downclimb, given that our route was so easy. But Skylar assured he'd set up a rapel system that wouldn't leave gear behind. When Hannah and Skylar were back on the ground, Jason and I realized we weren't going to be able to get down.
Shit. It was time to simo-climb. Hannah went to scout a safe downclimbing point while Jason and I set and undid protection across the entire top ledge of the Short Wall. It was frustrating and painstaking, and we were exhausted by the end. But Jason's optimism never let up.
"You always learn something new, right?" And I had. And I was grateful for it.
While hopping down the boulders towards the car, Hannah had dropped our guidebook down a crack between two boulders. We pondered our options, and decided after chilling out for a moment at the car (with beer, naturally), we'd head into town and grab another book before bouldering.
We lounged for a while. I always tried to keep my face turned away from the sun, given the sting it caused. The wind was less aggressive, seemed less vindictive down at the bottom of the road. We each had a fairly chilled beer, warming our jackets in the undiluted sunlight, and talked. Talked and talked. Acid trips and old drinking stories, herbal medicine, eye contact. Hannah made a statement that eye contact was the sign of a strong will, and how avoiding it showed a sense of cowardice.
"Strangers don't make eye-contact anymore," she said. She stared heartily into mine while saying this. I felt defiant, and grateful. I felt like it was a sign of respect, this challenge. We stared at each other directly until we were both satisfied in the placement of our wills. A silence had started to rise like bread dough before we were done.
The conversation called for a second beer, and more drug stories. I watched Skylar talk, not quite listening, but enjoying how my beer was cold but my hands no longer were.
For a split second, I was his tongue. It was a moray eel, blunted and slim in the pink sea-rock cavern of his mouth. It twisted in a way that felt utterly inhuman. I shivered. I needed to move more, focus less. I felt strange on that road by Lost Horse.
So we jumped into the car, made a pit stop at a corner store for more beer and cigarettes. We dropped into the climbing store right at the entrance of Park Drive. They had so many wonderful things! I was lured by the survival equipment, beautiful camping knives and survival bandannas that were way beyond my budget. Instead, I got a much-needed pair of socks and some bandannas with star charts and knot-tying how-tos on them. Perfect.
The cashier flirted heavily with Skylar, and Hannah and I watched with a giggle. I fingered the fabric on expensive climbing clothes, also gorgeous to boot but fully functional, and told myself "someday..."
Heading back, we could feel the wind. It refused to be ignored. But we were determined to get some bouldering in. We went behind Cyclops Rock to try and wrangle some in, but it was much too cold for me. I wound up heading back to camp first, where I went for a stroll. Heading back get Jason's keys, I ran into them walking back and followed Skylar had apparently left shortly after I did.
Jason, Hannah and I skipped up to the top of our backside rock, a humongous beast of a thing with more boulder and faces than Michael Jackson had plastic surgeries. It loomed over the whole campground. Upon reaching the top, we discovered Skylar with his arms wrapped around his knees, trying to ignore the wind while watching the sky fade to dark.
"Where were you?" he asked me. "I came back early to watch the sunset with you!" I made up some lame excuse about how thirsty I was, and how I had trekked back. It really hadn't been an excuse, but I wish I had been at the camp when he had showed up.
Hannah pulled out a few beers from her backpack and passed them around. We fought our urge to run and shiver from the influence of the wind, while drinking cold beers that should have been refreshing but simply added to the chill. We talked politics, religion, and about how stupid it was when people talked politics and religion. We discussed the sunset and stopped just short of dissecting it. And finally, when our noses and fingers were too numb to remember, we skipped back down the rock to our camp.
"Let's go find those neighbors tonight," Sky had mentioned, and he and I headed out while Hannah and Jason cooked dinner. Our rallying call was simply "Cool neighbors! Where aaaaaare yooooooouuuuu?" until we got a reply. A group of five flagged us down, plied us with the most expensive delicious whiskey I had ever tasted (it was so smokey and smooth, damn you awesome Irish folk!), beer and tortilla chips. We learned a few names and a few stories, but mostly I simply remember Jeff (the handsomest in a dorky, glasses and giggles sort of way, I wanted to kiss him all night) and Bill (the most talkative, who kept complimenting and exclaiming over my character). Bill was a number cruncher who retired early after making bank, and Jeff was an ex-competition climber who had apparently competed against Sharma some fifteen years ago. The three other gentlemen were kind enough and fun enough, but not as talkative or memorable. I wish they had been.
We spoke for a while about a great many things before Skylar and I returned back to camp to eat dinner. We left them with an invitation to swing by and visit, and they swore they'd take us up on it.
Dinner was polenta and veggies with cheese and marinara, and so so delicious. We hunkered down with a few beers and chilled for all of a few minutes before the neighbors swung by. I pressed the guitar into Bill's hands, Skylar pressed a pipe into Jeff's, and the instant friendship bloomed a little more. Bill was savvy at blues guitar, and Jeff would double over in giggles at almost anything.
We were told stories or marmots, and weird things one does when their arm falls asleep. I talked a great deal, usually making Bill make some exclamation (usually, "where were all the girls like you when I was twenty?!"). The guitar was passed between Bill, Hannah and I a great deal.
It was passed to me at one point, and I started singing Boats and Birds to myself. By the second verse, all conversation had hushed and suddenly, I had an impromptu audience. I hadn't realized that anyone had been paying attention until the voices stopped, and then felt sheepish and a little spotlighted. But I played the song through, since it seemed right enough to do. When I finished, nobody said anything for a while.
"Thank you for that." Bill spoke first.
"That was...amazing. I felt it right here," Sky said, pointing to his chest. "And I know that sounds corny and ridiculous, but I mean it."
I was a little taken aback, slightly embarrassed. But also flushed with what felt like appreciation. I had caused a moment, and a good one. Something we all got to share.
We wrapped up the party shortly after. I retired back to the truck, falling asleep quickly for once.
~