These three have been friends for over thirty years, and they’ve been there for me, and each other, at every step of life along that journey. Spending any amount of time together is good for the soul, and in our 50th year on earth, I think we appreciate this a little more. As it usually does, Sunday morning came much too soon, the way time with your favorite people always passes too quickly.
We bid our farewells with long hugs and short goodbyes, as nothing else needed to be said. As we trundled out of the long gravel driveway that led to and from Anu and Cormac’s River House, Suzie and I settled into the lifelong camaraderie that would allow what would turn into the next eleven hours of driving to pass with relative enjoyment. In a field close to our right, another brush with natural wonder was in store for us on our way out, as a pair of bald eagles sat on the ground. The one nearest the road, and the closest I’ve ever come to one of these majestic creatures outside of captivity, was the embodiment of regal magnificence. You never realize how gigantic and immense these raptors are until you get close to them, and then you feel dwarfed and humbled by the experience. Wonder and might and grace… and maybe this world will be all right and maybe it won’t.
Such ruminations were fair fodder when you have a traveling companion like Suzie – and it still holds true that she’s one of the very few people who could withstand an eleven-hour car trip with me. And vice versa. As the day faded, too early as this time of the year insists, we found ourselves pulling over for a quick dinner of a Popeye’s Fried Chicken Sandwich. Suzie had suggested a stop at H-Mart, and I was eager to see what whether all the fuss over it was merited – and happily it was – a warmly lit stock-up moment of opportunity gave us renewed sustenance for a second wind at the almost-end of a long ride.
At least, I thought it was the near-end, but we still had about three more hours to go. Suzie gamely found us a Starbucks for a fast cafe culture moment – and my very first PM of the holiday season (that’s Peppermint Mocha to all you sick fucks who think PM stands for something much worse). We took the coffee on the road (decaf, of course) and on the final leg of our journey home listened to the entire ‘Like A Prayer’ album which had helped me through that tricky high school autumn when Suzie was away at Denmark and I was about to hold my own at our family’s holiday gatherings without her for the first time. The songs rekindled memories of when I would write to Suzie and record tapes of silliness and loneliness and just about every messy-ness other than happiness.
“You were the only person I could talk to at the time,” I told her, immediately returning to those lonely nights I whispered secrets and nonsense into a tape recorder before adding Madonna’s ‘Promise To Try’ to the mix. As our drive entered its eleventh hour, a sweeter and more fitting finale to a weekend of friendship could not have been conjured or crafted by the greatest of storytellers.
SEE ALSO:
Part 1: Driving South with Suzie
Part 2: A Loveliness By the River
Part 3: November Sweeps in Virginia
Part 4: Shuck Off, Mutha-Shuckers!
Part 5: A Solitary Sunset Elicits Happy Tears
Part 6: Magic Moons & Shooting Stars
Part 7: Friendship By Firelight
