Last week, my good friend Carmen left behind her cramped, ashy apartment in the Bronx, closed the window that overlooks the green swells of the Harlem River, and came to visit me in California.
Carmen and I have the oddest things in common. We are equally talented at trivia games, and equally, um…enthusiastic at basketball. We both, as kids, read this crappy YA series (about gymnasts) that could only be found in used bookstores. We both can be perfectly entertained for an hour by throwing one rubber ball up a staircase to dislodge another rubber ball.
Our plan was to visit the wine country, where my family lives, and then the L.A. area, where her family lives—with a long-awaited side-trip to Disneyland. I asked myself what my favorite moments of our journey were, and this is what sprung to mind:
Carmen saying, “I can’t believe your family has a room full of dirt in your house!” (We do.) “That is the coolest thing! Nobody’s house just has a room full of dirt in it!”
Riding Amtrak, over the course of one long Monday, from Santa Rosa to Irvine. Our porter for the longest leg of the trip (Martinez to Bakersfield) was a flustered but friendly man. “We’re jam-packed today,” he explained breathlessly. “If you girls want to move to the dining car permanently, it’ll free up some seats...”
So we sat in the dining car for eight hours, sipped coffee, and stayed entertained by reminiscing about the gruesome ways you can die in Choose Your Own Adventure novels. We watched the Central Valley roll past the rectangular window beside us. The dry, flat, endless Central Valley, full of oil refineries and scummy aqueducts where Carmen, as a child, was persistently forbidden to swim. And fields.
Fields.
Fields.
Even the cherry trees, in their dizzyingly uniform rows, were coated with dust.
“Hanford!” Carmen exclaimed midway through our ride. “This is near where I grew up!”
The distant hills, as bare of trees as sheet metal, glinted in the winter sun.
And finally, watching Carmen drive into the twilit fog, in a tiny pink car.
That, I must explain, was at Disneyland. I was going to see her again in about eight minutes, once we’d both finished the Autopia loop. I’ll never get over the cutesy surrealism, though, of watching her speed aggressively away in a car designed for Minnie Mouse.
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I’d like to describe what I thought might happen during Carmen’s visit. I had this idea, beforehand, that we would, on the course of a road trip, stay in a mysterious wigwam and make hand shadows against the walls. I have no knowledge where I got the image: it rose from the unplumbed depths of my imagination, where the best characters and dialogue dwell incognito.
Needless to say, it was a bit too weird to come true—and I can’t say I regret that, considering how I’ve always sucked at hand shadows. Still, whenever I think of what did happen during Carmen’s visit, its underbelly is this strange moment that didn’t happen, but persists in my mind.
Maybe there was something special about those hand shadows I imagined. Maybe they were a communication from a Danica in an alternate dimension, who is currently trapped in a wigwam and representing her situation pictographically.
Probably not—but in my trade, it helps to keep an open mind.
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Friendship is a wonderful thing. You know that someone is a true friend, a teacher once told me, if you can show up on their doorstep, shout, “I killed the Mayor!” and they let you come inside.
Stick with your true friends—those kindred souls who you can play six (count ‘em, six) different board games with you during a five day span. Those awesome individuals who will bike with you in out of the way wine-towns, or tell you the name, when you ask, of the main character in The Ewok Adventures. Those lovely folk who obsess over a house having a room full of dirt.
“No, really! A room full of dirt and spiders?” She nodded enthusiastically. “It’s the coolest thing ever.”
“Wait ‘til you see the secret crawlspace under the deck,” I promised. Carmen’s eyes widened expectantly.
I’ve fallen out of contact with some great people, great friends. I regret it, but I’ve made peace with the fact that separations happen. Sometimes, they seem inevitable. Through it all, my family (another bunch of awesomely quirky people) and close friends have stuck with me.
All I can say to them is, thank you. Thank you for making me feel comfortable to be my own peculiar self.
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