A week with friends

It's one of those nights where I've done a little bit of everything--watching, reading, writing, snacking--but it all still feels insufficient, like I'm tired of looking at a screen but staring off-screen, too, like the most interesting thing in my room is a spider that hasn't moved in hours. I'm not necessarily down, just--here, watching the minutes pass, feeling like I'm at the precipice of so much potential change: job (will I still have it in a few months?); writing (I've found such comfort in CNF, but what if I branch out more?); residence (are Austin and I moving or staying?), etc. How much of me worries that everything will actually stay the same?

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Last Wednesday, Austin and I drove to the Amtrak train station to pick up Sophie, a study abroad friend from 2012, someone I haven't seen in more than a decade. She sent me a Valentines Day postcard in 2023, but it took until February 2024 for me to say hello, I'm so sorry it's taken so long, how are you, here is what's up with me: this year has been a whirlwind, I lost my grandfather but gained a boyfriend who just moved in. When Austin and I were planning our Seattle move, I thought of many inspiring things: the Pacific Northwest trees and mountains, rainy apartment days, walkable coffee shops, and the distance between Seattle and Sophie, who I knew I wanted to visit. So when she texted a couple weeks ago saying she was thinking of taking a quick solo trip from Portland to Seattle, I responded almost immediately: omg, it would be so great to see you!!

Within a week she arrived, the open-armed Sophie I'd met when I was 22, someone I admired for her athleticism, culinary skills, sense of adventure, easy confidence and infectious love of loving others. She walked in, set down her bags, and we immediately sunk into the slow decompression of reconnection, of what we do and where we are and who we're trying to become. After eating sweet potato and black bean burritos, we walked to Accidental Park and down long steps and gazed at the mountain ridges and she told me the houses and foliage in Fremont remind her very much of Portland back home. We ended our walk at the Russian dumplings restaurant where we sipped the same $10 mojitos Austin and I had indulged in the week before and chatted about many things including kids, whether or not we want them and when and why. We talked about how caretaking comes in phases and she said yes, that one day and not so far away, the children grow into adults.

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On Thursday morning, Sophie and I drove an hour west of Fremont to Rattlesnake Ridge, one of the most popular hikes in Seattle because of its proximity, a hike I'd had on my list for months. When we arrived by 10 am, the parking lot was already a quarter of the way full: women were slathering on sunscreen as families played with their toddlers on the lakeshore. The day was already warm enough to start sleeveless, even in the shade. And as it unfolded, so did we. We talked and talked and talked, about our past relationships and current ones, about our families and jobs. The summit was breathtaking but bustling, so we pressed on further, over roots and soft earth, climbing until we passed fewer and fewer people, until we were breathless from elevation, from the sharing of vulnerabilities, from the push to reach the next mark on the map.

We passed a group of four older men who said they were thru-hiking until the end of the day, and they caught us to up later when we sat on a sunny wooden log and snacked on dried mango and nuts. We also chatted with a couple of older men who had driven up the mountain to do ham radio, and when Sophie told them she'd known someone who did it, too, but was now deceased, they explained to us the concept of "silent key", how when an operator dies, fellow ham radio operators refer to that person as a silent key, and the call sign stays out of the public grasp for two years out of respect. Standing in front of them, mom's call sign suddenly came to mind, and they guessed, from her letters alone, that she was from the South. I read that some operators will have a whole ceremony where they try to reach the departed through voice and morse code several times, and after no response, the operators announce the death after something like no response, or nothing heard. I think now about my dream last night, and how in it I'd texted Mom because I hadn't heard from her in so long, and when I tried to call her, she didn't answer. She's back in the ER, Dad said to me in the dream with tears in his eyes, and I wrapped my sister in my arms, and I woke up sobbing.

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On Friday evening, after Sophie had left that morning, Austin dropped me off at Chinmay and Sanjana's for a girls' "sip and paint" night, which everyone joked later should have been called "less paint, more sip." I stayed mostly quiet as I compared my shockingly awful strokes with those of my neighbors, who refilled their wine glasses with red. I listened to the culture shock of the Indian dating scene as I snacked on pretzels, sipped chardonnay, and dragged too-thick brushes of emerald green and cyan across my canvas.

Saturday night we walked up to Steve and Rachel’s house to celebrate Max’s bday. Max and Inka brought pizza from Big Mario's, we brought wine, and Rachel made a delicious key lime pie, which a drunk Max sliced into comically uneven lines. Austin and I traded places on the armchair and floor as I sipped a tasty canned blackberry cider and listened to them talk about art school, dating histories, and things like synesthesia, which I never understood before Max described it as a matter of neural association. Austin’s friends are all visual artists that use bizarrely specific and hyperbolic descriptions of events and feelings, and eventually I was laughing so hard I was crying, the kind of laugh where even after everyone else has stopped, the laughter still forces its way out of your cheeks and the idea of having to contain it makes you laugh even more.

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Wednesday night we played Mario Kart with Chinmay and Sanjana in their apartment's loft on a theater screen. Austin snuck into first place every single time as Chinmay and I took turns softly screaming at blue turtles and lightning strikes, prompting Chinmay to declare a new and important goal for himself to practice and then slay Austin next time. After our final race, with me slightly buzzed from an Oktoberfest, Sanjana told us to step outside to see the view from the deck. When we turned the corner we saw a jubilant group of people dancing in a circle, and we heard, “oh look more people! Join us!” and we smiled cautiously and considered, and next thing we know we’re dancing hora against the sunset for Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), and we’re all having a grand old time, and I didn’t consider that Austin is afraid of heights until after, when he told me he was just praying the building wouldn’t collapse, and then I imagined the person from across the cityscape who had been watching, and camera angles on our happy faces and then crash boom the building goes down at the climax of our laughter and joy, just as I’m thinking how beautiful life can be sometimes, me with my arms wrapped around strangers, stepping in front and skipping in back, all of our arms raised and swaying to songs that celebrate freedom.