Chapter 3

A good friend knows us better than we know ourselves and takes us as we are. They perceive the intricate layers of our personality, lovingly melding them together into something uniquely beautiful amidst life’s chaos, lovable despite the mess. Sometimes we have a friend and don’t know it, and only in retrospect, as we gaze back through the mists of memory, that we recognize the truth of a soul we once mistook for someone else.

Time and distance give us the perspective that we didn’t have in the moment, and I think visiting her had done that for me. Seeing her so content and relaxed dispelled a worry that I didn’t think I harbored, exhaling a breath that I didn’t know I held.

If I concentrate, I can still hear the rustling whispers of the dried bamboo, see the explosive brightness of countless tulips, a beautiful azure sky with majestic clouds, pink sparkles dancing on the stone path, and the light fragrance of the sprayed sunscreen and fresh sage carried on the breeze. Still, I feel her spoken words embroidered on the fabric of my heart.

It’s horrible to languish, day after day in a job that doesn’t fulfill you like it once had, crippling you so you can’t muster the strength to escape, even when there are open doors, she says, as we sit on a bench while others meander the way we just came. But you know this and you know yourself as well as I know you… and I dare say you’re wiser than you give yourself credit for.

As we spoke and ambled through the sunlight and shadow, her eyes shimmered with the verdant, lush green of new leaves in spring, whispering of a lifetime woven into the prairie. Her gaze held a captivating mix of untold histories and endless possibility, as though she were intimately connected to both earth and sky.

She glided rather than walked, I think, and must have glowed and shimmered, almost melding into the foliage. The vastness of the forest was the right backdrop to our shared journey and I have learned so much.

I sat alone for a while after she said good bye with a double hug I didn’t think I needed. The smoothie I drank afterwards had been vibrant in color and flavor, and hearing her dreams had filled my cup. It was good therapy and a healing balm for an ever-aching spirit.

But that was yesterday, and I replay every moment and every word, hoping that it will bring me to new truths in the morning that I hadn’t recognized the day before as I flew home…

I shouldn’t be here, I think as I step off the plane, still tasting the pineapple and coconut lingering on my tongue, feeling suddenly out of place in the city where I grew up. The west still beckons with a promise of new beginnings, its openness a stark contrast to the perceived stricture of my current existence. Now, breathing in the not quite stale air of the airport terminal at 5am, physically present but my mind elsewhere, I grapple with the uncertainty of what to do next.

With a family that loves me and a cozy home, I should never complain, but here I am feeling like something is inextricably missing and I don’t know what it is. But it’s then that I dig out a small notebook and a pen from my weathered bag and start to write–haltingly at first, but then with increasing fervor, falling into a familiar pattern, my fingers dancing to a rhythm of a long-forgotten song.