This was written in February 2024, before Angie left us, before all the stuff with the car that followed, before the second trip to California. If this note makes no sense now, it will eventually if I every write all the stuff that I need to write to tell the story. The stories.
This is going to be a lot of words, I think, and maybe multiple posts. I’ve been dragging my feet on putting any of it down in writing because it was so much in such a short period of time and, despite it being months later, I think I’m still processing all of it.
I’m going to blame most of it on Angie. And Kevin a little bit, but mostly Angie. And Carrie. Carrie gets some blame.
The last few years, with the pandemic and the strangeness of the world and the epic losses so many of us have experienced, have been difficult and strange. I’m not sure there’s enough psychologists or clergy or medics to help us all through it. But we have each other. Mostly, but for those we’ve lost along the way.
Angie and I have been friends since the sixth grade. Our lives have changed and evolved and, though we don’t talk every day like we once did, I know she still understands me like no one else in this world does. She is my secretkeeper.
She’s had some serious health challenges over the last few years. She first hesitated to tell me because of Kevin and then was more or less forced to because of Carrie. So, when she calls, I drop things and go.
She called in July, not for any sort of emergency, but for a quick trip north to see some of our mutual friends play some songs in a church parking lot in Tacoma. When I put those words in that order, it makes it sound awful, but it was one of the most healing things I’ve done in years. The chance to reconnect with friends from one of my past worlds, to share laughter and music with them, was an absolute gift.
Angie also gave me the opportunity to reconnect with a couple other past worlds with these words: “Joe’s getting married again. In San Jose.”
I immediately started looking at flights.
Joe is Angie’s younger brother and through the transitive power of time and familiarity, mine as well. When we were kids, Joe’s band was always in the basement when I was over at their house. In later years, we would all go to bowling alley karaoke for his birthday or for hers (both in March).
I missed Joe’s first wedding, I think because I was on the road at the time (see above paragraph about music in a parking lot). His second wedding was nothing less than pivotal in my world. It was a wedding from which I have still not recovered.
All this to say: there was no earthly way I was going to miss his third wedding.
Those closest to me know that I am never happier than when I’m planning some sort of trip. I like train schedules and flight plans and hotel reservations. I like maps and rolling suitcases and rental cars. With a second-hand wedding invitation, I launched: flight booked, hotel booked, car booked. Dress purchased. An embarrassing number of shoes packed. A last-minute scramble to acquire a camera. Absurdly early alarm set.
But there was more to this trip than just Joe’s wedding. Last October marked 40 years since I moved with my family from California. I’ve only had brief returns over the years and there were so many places we left behind when we came north. Most of our extended family is gone from California now, too. Our last links to the state are tenuous at best.
So, two birds.
And that is where I left it a year ago, about to tell the story of a return to California, a surprise rental car, and so many ghosts from both a past I remember and a past that came before me.
octoberthoughtspdx 