Jackson

It became a habit that started by chance.

As was our tradition, we were seeing an 'Arnie' movie, one of the many Arnold Schwarzenegger thin-storyline-but-lotsa-muscles adventures that we'd become accustom to seeing together. Between my arriving late to his house to pick him up, and his step-mom's fussing and slow travel due to snow, we got a late start to the show. When we arrived at the theater at the last possible moment, we managed to find the last possible parking space in a vast wasteland of asphalt.

Everything was off that evening; energy levels, conversation and timing. Finding this last spot and parking by the sad pine tree that was so reminiscent of the Christmas Tree from 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' it was the virtual cherry on top of the series of mishaps that we'd experienced thus far.

So we laughed. The movie was pretty typical - I think it was the 'Running Man' - and the story was painfully appropriate for the miss-mash of our moods. Neither Jackson nor I were in the sort of light hearted spirit needed for conversation and the drive home was as silent as the one there.

In the years following that night, whenever a new Arnie movie came out, we'd meet up, head to the same theater and park beneath the sparse boughs of THE tree, which I'd christened as Tom along the way.

As the decades have passed, our lives have moved in different directions. Each of us has married and we have our own little families. On rare occasions our paths cross, but never for very long. Most of our conversations center around what we've been up to since we last met, but sometimes on the rare occasion we delve into deeper topics, but my overly inquisitive nature and peppering of questions often drives him away until we meet again.

Neither of us lives in the town we grew up in, and our homes now lie in different parts of the country. Even now though out of habit, after my long drive to work I consistently park in a vast lot in front of a sparse and sad looking ash. And as I do, I can't help but remember that lonely little pine from my teens that has now grown to a massive Douglas Fir (or so it seemed the last time I went home.)

To you my friend Jackson, on this day I wish you a Happy Birthday and thank you for your friendship. I hope that the next time we meet up it will be a long and happy conversation.  Until then, I wish you many viewings of bad Arnie movies and good fortune along the way.

~ Amy

'The Can'

Many moons ago Charles sent me a link to a poem called the "Statistical Abstract for My Home of Spokane, Washington" by Jess Walter.  Written by a celebrated author in Spokane, this piece is more apt at capturing the essence of the city than any other attempt I've ever seen.

The roots in Spoke run deep and they are loyal. Blood means more than anything, and while many of the kids I grew up with were regularly beaten by their own, should you cross the path of one of their 'kin' you better run for cover, cause they will fight you to the death.

It is a town of extremes, but with a common love for the BMX bike. Even a google street view of my parents house taken within the last few years shows a faceless guy wearing a 'beater shirt', gangland pants riding his seat-too-low BMX.

It's the kind of Town you love or hate, you want to live in or leave and there is rarely an in-between. But there is one thing for certain that can be said about the town. It has a stubborn spirit and is the source of many a tall tale, but it is the kind of town that won't be pushed around, and has made the news so many times, that when people ask you where you grew up, no state is needed to identify it's location.

Is that a good thing or not?  I haven't quite figured it out yet.

Finding the pet in the peeve.

In a little less than two weeks I'll be heading north to the town I grew up in to celebrate my high school reunion, and in revisiting the past and reflecting on who I've been and who I've become, one thing has been consistent through the years. Of course, I say that meaning that several things have remained similar, a lot has gotten better, but one overwhelming characteristic about me has been the same since my earliest memories. My pet peeve. The one thing I wish that I could change about me. I HATE it when I ask a question and receive no response. Or, more importantly, I hate who I become when this happens.

Perhaps it's that I grew up in a loud and chaotic family where "he who is loudest is king of conversation" that I grew sensitive to lack of a response to a question posed. Perhaps it's that most questions that were heard received the response "handle it, handle it" or were even ignored or avoided that makes me so unsettled when a question is asked only to be met with silence. Perhaps it's that I'm afraid that the person whom I've posed the question to no longer cares to respond, is no longer interested in a relationship.

Charles learned long ago that the easiest way to make this confident, secure, intelligent, witty and fun person crumble into the unshakably clingy child that I was long ago is to ignore and remain silent to an honest question. I hate that I devolve almost instantaneously into a frantic almost shrieking girl that the more he seems to ignore, the more frantic I become. I've tried to change it; to excise it from who I am, yet every attempt fails. I loathe that person. That caricature of the feminine. I know. I hate to generalize, but I wonder if it is a girl thing.

How many times have you been out shopping to find a guy walking stoutly with purpose in a specific direction while his girlfriend/wife walks alongside becoming more and more frantic as she asks him questions and he fails to respond? I know how she feels, and yet I silently wish her the strength to become silent and hold her own. I wish that for her, and I wish that for myself more than anything.

As I prepare to head north, to remember the days gone by and celebrate the person I've become, I hope that one friend in particular can overlook this awful flaw of mine that has driven them away over time, so that for one brief moment they can give me the chance to show them calm, the fun, the remarkable side of me, because I miss their friendship. I miss our conversations, and I miss that in having this trait they think I am what they avoid with ever fiber of their being; a clingy simpering chick. What I hate most is that they ever saw that side of me, that pet peeve of me.

In the meantime, I'm trying to find the bright side of not having a question answered. Perhaps it's not the answer that I'm seeking, perhaps it's asking the question itself and how it came to be that is important.