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so many layers of the world
I am making a mix tape called "Songs I Like But Phil Doesn't" to listen to on our road trip to PEI; I have had One Chance in my head all day and I think I will go crazy if I can't listen to it, and my portable CD player does not like my Modest Mouse CD, for some reason. Last time Phil was at my apartment I said, "Let's listen to some music that I like but you don't!" and I put on Modest Mouse and Phil was like, "Whoa, you sure called that."
Wow, I hope we can handle being alone together in a car for ten hours.
(Luckily, Joey will be there for the trip home.)
The mix tape is the last thing I have to do to get ready, marking the end to a long day of errands and packing and dealing with Joey's predicament and borrowing stuff from people and figuring out how my cousin's tent fits together because my sister apparently took all the pieces all apart, which you are NOT supposed to do when she borrowed it to go secret bungee jumping last month.
Yesterday was much more relaxed, since I did absolutely nothing to get ready for the trip, despite its being only 2 days away. Instead. I spent it lying on a blanket in my parents' backyard, reading Rolling Stone and eating all the ripe blackberries on their blackberry bush; and swimming and hanging out with Heather's mom at her cottage. She is giving us all this camping stuff that has been salvaged from Heather's car. We were even going to take her tent, but discovered only Friday that it is ripped on one side and full of holes. Heather hadn't checked it before leaving. That would really have sucked for them to discover, arriving at the campground after dark as they had planned. It makes me chuckle a little.
I miss Heather so much. I still have those moments where I forget she is gone. Whenever anything cool happens, my subconscious still immediately thinks of Heather and how excited she will be to hear when I tell her. It takes a few seconds for my conscious mind to take over and explain to my subconscious that this can't happen anymore. Then they fight it out for a bit and I feel like I am losing my sanity. I have to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths and convince myself that I am not crazy.
Even this mix tape I am making makes me think of her. I am so angry that she will never get to hear this music. I tried to listen to Little Plastic Castle the other day and I had to turn it off because I couldn't handle it. I remember listening to that album at Heather's cottage, sitting on the screen porch, looking out at the lake. I remember sitting in the quad, at school, singing along when whe should have been studying. They are happy memories, but sometimes it hurts too much to relive them.
Some days are worse than others. Some days I hardly think of her at all. Other days she seems to be everywhere I turn. Like today. As I was pulling out of Le Vegetarien's parking lot, I saw Barb, my old sychronized swimming teacher, in my rearview mirror. She had grey hair and was holding the hand of a young boy, probably her son. It took a second to process, since in my memory Barb is permanently frozen as an 18 year old lifeguard. I am older now than Barb was then. Heather and I met in synchronized swimming when we were 10 years old. I only remember this extremely vaguely, but Heather loved to tell the story of how we did a duet together in the end of summer show to the song When A Man Loves A Woman. Heather was the man and I was the woman. I remember she wore a purple bathing suit and a top hat. Heather quit synchro after that year and it would be six or seven years before we became good friends, but when she was filling out her passport application recently, she wrote in the space for references that she had known me for 14 years and we both freaked out a little. Heather would have loved to hear about my seeing Barb, and her grey hair, and speculating about whether she had married that guy with the buck teeth who used to hang around the pool.
Then, when I came home from the grocery store, my mother told me she had found something while cleaning a corner of the living room. It was a card that Heather had given me, dated January 1998. On the front is a picture of the Grand Canyon; she had been there over winter break, I think. Inside the front she had glued a small map of Greece, where we would be going that May. Inside, she wrote:
Dear Laura,
This is a card for you. It is a very special picture on the front: imagine being so high above the river flowing way down that deep canyon. Imagine how long it took for that water to carve its way through the rock to make such an impressive sight, and reveal so many layers of the world. And imagine watching the sun set.
This is a card for our travels. We have come so far, and we still have so much to discover in travels to come. There are so many places to go - imagine. May we continue making our way happily through the world.
Included is an arowhead from Arizona. It is all smooth on one side, and sort of rough on some edges. I like to carry mine in my pocket sometimes.
And have a nice day.
Love,
Heather
Oh, our travels. Heather wanted to come on this trip to PEI. I remember how she whined at the thought she might still be away, in BC, when we went. And now she won't be coming for an entirely different reason. And thre is such a hole there, where she should be. We have been friends for 7 years, the four of us. Ever since our high school trip to Switzerland, when we started sitting together on the trains. We thought we would grow old together, have little reunions every year or so, share our lives with each other. It's so hard. But there's nothing we can do except remember, and keep going, making our way happily through the world.
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