Moving Moment #5
As my sister Nina keeps pointing out, I appear to be having some issues writing about my trip to Alaska. It's now 2 months since I returned, and I still haven't gotten my thoughts together enough to write some of the things I wanted to say. So, since this has been working for me in the past year, when I've come across a little writer's block, I've decided to write about another moving moment to get myself started.
Moving Moment #5
The Earls and the Vaughans grew up together. For many years (though later the Vaughans would surpass us in number) we had the same size families, and our ages matched up pretty well with each other. Tyler was about a year older than Josh, Lindsey was a year older than me, Bethaney, a year ahead of Nina. We were much thrown together as children. It turned out remarkably well; everyone got along with their corresponding playmate. Lindsey and I met when I was like 6 or 7, I don't remember which, and hated each other for a good number of years. Yet bafflingly, we still considered ourselves best friends. We were always anxious to spend time with each other, have sleep overs, go on hayrides, play runaway slaves in the cow fields, go for rides in the jeep (which was probably like 30 years old), and have bonfires. We were, in a way, bonded against Nina and Bet, who were, to put it delicately, a little sillier than ourselves, and with whom we spent almost as much time as we did together. As the years passed, Lindsey and I (along with Bethaney and Nina) got to be much closer friends. I'd say by the time we reached middle school, I was extremely grateful to have a friend who was close enough to know my character in the way a sister might, but who wasn't actually a sister. Lindsey was always quick to tell me when I was being stupid or ridiculous, her opinion on the matter, or what she thought I should do. Though she hates to hear it, she's a very practical girl. But she's also an amazingly kind, sweet, and understanding person. I didn't have to worry about her judging me. We all do and say stupid stuff, especially as teenagers, and I was no exception to this rule. But Lindsey never looked down on me or gave me a hard time for the choices I made or didn't make. She was a rock. In high school, I left for Austria on foreign exchange for several months. When I returned, there was only one year left before I left for Pittsburgh to go to college. During that one year Lindsey and I were closer than ever. We made up words together, planned out our future lives, played countless hours of board and card games, hiked a dozen mountains, spent every weekend in her room in her parents' basement talking until the small hours of the morning, took road trips to Canada, New England, and Pennsylvania. Coming home to such a good friend was such a great comfort. Unfortunately, the distance between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Moira, New York is a pretty serious distance. I barely got home at all during my first few years of college, and while Lindsey made a trip or two down to see me, and I made a trip or two up to see her, she eventually headed for new territory: Alaska. After she moved, as you can imagine, the number of times we saw each other decreased pretty dramatically. On top of that, my parents moved from New York to Pennsylvania, and I rarely traveled north for holidays or vacations at all anymore. In fact, until Bethaney's baby shower last year, I hadn't seen Lindsey in 7 years. But we were determined to make it the last time that we went that long. She visited Pittsburgh again in January, and we made plans for me to fly out to Alaska in May. I got a pretty decent tax refund from the IRS, bought my ticket, took all my vacation time at once, and packed my bags. I can't tell you the anticipation and excitement I felt. In college and graduate school, I was always traveling. In the last few years since I've been working full-time, I've been barely anywhere. I think the last time I left the country I was 23. It's been a while. Alaska might as well be leaving the country. It's pretty incredible up there. Lindsey and I took a lot of road trips, but since this is a moving moment, and I haven't actually gotten to the moment yet, I'll talk about the one that really spoke to me. In Alaska, the tallest mountain is Mt. McKinley, though the natives call it Denali, meaning "the High One" in Athabaskan. Pretty much it's impossible to see. There are mountains everywhere, and they're huge. But this one is so huge, it's way huger than the rest, and therefore, mostly in the clouds. On a clear day you can mostly see the top, but it's not likely. For the two weeks I was there, I didn't see the top once. But my last day there, we went up to Talkeetna, a small, artsy town about an hour and a half away from Anchorage. What a great little town. Very hippie, very cute, set away from everything. There's all these little shops and stores where they sell handmade crafts and furs and chocolates. When we went, it was insanely populated with tourists. There are more motorcycles in Alaska than in all of the lower 48 states combined. Which is really beyond me, since people can't ride them for like 9 months out of the year, but whatever. And when I say "insanely populated" I mean there were a few hundred. Probably as many people as the number who lived there, so about 800. Anyway, one really fun older woman who owned this great quilting store talked to us for a while. She was one of these people who is easy to fall into conversation with, she's not afraid to talk about personal things. She told us about this one guy who lived in town (she lived about 5 or 10 minutes away I guess) who was really handsome. As she put it, she "lusted after him." But he was married, so she never even so much as talked to him. She seemed kind of lonely, honestly. Anyway, she said to Lindsey, "Have you taken her down to the river yet?" So that's what we did next. I wish I had words for that river. It was incredible. And finally, we saw Denali. It was so big. I can't even tell you how big it was. It was like twice the size of any of the normal ones around it. I couldn't believe it. The sky was clear, it was the warmest it'd been since I got there, the breeze was blowing, the river was completely thawed and full. Lindsey and I just sat on this washed up log on the beach, and I felt overwhelming thankful for the time that was given to me in Alaska. We had spent a lot of time traveling, going places and seeing things. I had loved every minute of it. But this moment I took to stop and breathe. This moment I took to realize the real gift of this world. Alaska is so raw. It was like going back to the root of existence, going back to the beginning. We could have stayed there all day, just me and Lindsey and the log and this river and the absolute splendor of this mountain. The clear blue sky and the greatest mountain I'd ever seen. Two weeks of vacation and my good friend Lindsey, who fed and housed and drove me around like a maniac for weeks. Lindsey, who shared my entire childhood with me, knew every secret I had to tell, listened to me talk her ear off for hours and hours about every little detail of my life. What more is there to life than this? What could I possibly ask for that I hadn't been given at that moment?
Moving Moment #5
The Earls and the Vaughans grew up together. For many years (though later the Vaughans would surpass us in number) we had the same size families, and our ages matched up pretty well with each other. Tyler was about a year older than Josh, Lindsey was a year older than me, Bethaney, a year ahead of Nina. We were much thrown together as children. It turned out remarkably well; everyone got along with their corresponding playmate. Lindsey and I met when I was like 6 or 7, I don't remember which, and hated each other for a good number of years. Yet bafflingly, we still considered ourselves best friends. We were always anxious to spend time with each other, have sleep overs, go on hayrides, play runaway slaves in the cow fields, go for rides in the jeep (which was probably like 30 years old), and have bonfires. We were, in a way, bonded against Nina and Bet, who were, to put it delicately, a little sillier than ourselves, and with whom we spent almost as much time as we did together. As the years passed, Lindsey and I (along with Bethaney and Nina) got to be much closer friends. I'd say by the time we reached middle school, I was extremely grateful to have a friend who was close enough to know my character in the way a sister might, but who wasn't actually a sister. Lindsey was always quick to tell me when I was being stupid or ridiculous, her opinion on the matter, or what she thought I should do. Though she hates to hear it, she's a very practical girl. But she's also an amazingly kind, sweet, and understanding person. I didn't have to worry about her judging me. We all do and say stupid stuff, especially as teenagers, and I was no exception to this rule. But Lindsey never looked down on me or gave me a hard time for the choices I made or didn't make. She was a rock. In high school, I left for Austria on foreign exchange for several months. When I returned, there was only one year left before I left for Pittsburgh to go to college. During that one year Lindsey and I were closer than ever. We made up words together, planned out our future lives, played countless hours of board and card games, hiked a dozen mountains, spent every weekend in her room in her parents' basement talking until the small hours of the morning, took road trips to Canada, New England, and Pennsylvania. Coming home to such a good friend was such a great comfort. Unfortunately, the distance between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Moira, New York is a pretty serious distance. I barely got home at all during my first few years of college, and while Lindsey made a trip or two down to see me, and I made a trip or two up to see her, she eventually headed for new territory: Alaska. After she moved, as you can imagine, the number of times we saw each other decreased pretty dramatically. On top of that, my parents moved from New York to Pennsylvania, and I rarely traveled north for holidays or vacations at all anymore. In fact, until Bethaney's baby shower last year, I hadn't seen Lindsey in 7 years. But we were determined to make it the last time that we went that long. She visited Pittsburgh again in January, and we made plans for me to fly out to Alaska in May. I got a pretty decent tax refund from the IRS, bought my ticket, took all my vacation time at once, and packed my bags. I can't tell you the anticipation and excitement I felt. In college and graduate school, I was always traveling. In the last few years since I've been working full-time, I've been barely anywhere. I think the last time I left the country I was 23. It's been a while. Alaska might as well be leaving the country. It's pretty incredible up there. Lindsey and I took a lot of road trips, but since this is a moving moment, and I haven't actually gotten to the moment yet, I'll talk about the one that really spoke to me. In Alaska, the tallest mountain is Mt. McKinley, though the natives call it Denali, meaning "the High One" in Athabaskan. Pretty much it's impossible to see. There are mountains everywhere, and they're huge. But this one is so huge, it's way huger than the rest, and therefore, mostly in the clouds. On a clear day you can mostly see the top, but it's not likely. For the two weeks I was there, I didn't see the top once. But my last day there, we went up to Talkeetna, a small, artsy town about an hour and a half away from Anchorage. What a great little town. Very hippie, very cute, set away from everything. There's all these little shops and stores where they sell handmade crafts and furs and chocolates. When we went, it was insanely populated with tourists. There are more motorcycles in Alaska than in all of the lower 48 states combined. Which is really beyond me, since people can't ride them for like 9 months out of the year, but whatever. And when I say "insanely populated" I mean there were a few hundred. Probably as many people as the number who lived there, so about 800. Anyway, one really fun older woman who owned this great quilting store talked to us for a while. She was one of these people who is easy to fall into conversation with, she's not afraid to talk about personal things. She told us about this one guy who lived in town (she lived about 5 or 10 minutes away I guess) who was really handsome. As she put it, she "lusted after him." But he was married, so she never even so much as talked to him. She seemed kind of lonely, honestly. Anyway, she said to Lindsey, "Have you taken her down to the river yet?" So that's what we did next. I wish I had words for that river. It was incredible. And finally, we saw Denali. It was so big. I can't even tell you how big it was. It was like twice the size of any of the normal ones around it. I couldn't believe it. The sky was clear, it was the warmest it'd been since I got there, the breeze was blowing, the river was completely thawed and full. Lindsey and I just sat on this washed up log on the beach, and I felt overwhelming thankful for the time that was given to me in Alaska. We had spent a lot of time traveling, going places and seeing things. I had loved every minute of it. But this moment I took to stop and breathe. This moment I took to realize the real gift of this world. Alaska is so raw. It was like going back to the root of existence, going back to the beginning. We could have stayed there all day, just me and Lindsey and the log and this river and the absolute splendor of this mountain. The clear blue sky and the greatest mountain I'd ever seen. Two weeks of vacation and my good friend Lindsey, who fed and housed and drove me around like a maniac for weeks. Lindsey, who shared my entire childhood with me, knew every secret I had to tell, listened to me talk her ear off for hours and hours about every little detail of my life. What more is there to life than this? What could I possibly ask for that I hadn't been given at that moment?
I'm glad you guys reconnected. It's hard to beat friendships that grew as you grew up together!
ReplyDeleteThat was AWESOME. Yes, I am a TERRIBLE blog keep upper, and way behind the time, but that doesn't diminish it's awesomeness. I thought you should know.
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