On Sunday the weather turned from grim to lovely and I took advantage of the sunlight to throw the first picnic of the year.
Unfortunately the temperature was not amenable to this plan, so after shivering through lunch we retired to a cafe to read. I was browsing through an interview with Michelle Yeoh when I absorbed the startling fact that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came out seven long years ago.
I remember standing in a long queue (at the time I would have said line) on NW 21st with James and Byron quite distinctly because it was one of the rare times I let anyone other than my two companions babysit either of my children, ever.
The experience was also unusual because a stranger came up and started to heckle us because he did not approve of the way people were flocking to see that particular film.
We three just sort of stared. When he asked why we had chosen to be part of the herd-like crowd I answered reasonably Because we have tickets!
James had run away from home to live in my basement, where he spent his days arranging broken objects and taking photographs. At night he walked around the city. I do not recall spending much time with him at all during that sabbatical from his real life.
Other times with James are much more distinct in my mind – our first meeting, during a small-town parade. Sitting together in the high school hallway, admiring his leopard print shoes.
We toasted a New Year with Denny’s coffee as lonesome teenagers, my infant daughter propped between us. He says that he would not have gone to college unless I pestered him to apply, and this is true; I deliberately dragged him away from his childhood home.
I remember his dorm kitchen, and long crazy conversations in the musty garage bedroom at the Dundee house, and the music he played while making dinners in the yellow cabin.
We once drove a hundred miles with a car crammed full of my belongings, a huge clear plastic box containing a trophy baseball hat belonging to my in-laws improbably wedged between his lap and the dashboard, talking endlessly about existentialism and silly television shows.
One night when I was pregnant with my son we wandered in the Arizona desert with a woman who disliked me in a striking way, who would later tell him to choose between her love or my friendship. He said No.
During that trip he introduced me to Jess and I can even pull up a clear image of the napkin dispenser on the table of the restaurant where we ate lunch. It was a magical moment – she was the first adult I’d met who had also survived a life-threatening childhood illness and could talk about it without dissolving in tears. We laughed and laughed and eleven years later, she is still a good friend.
There are also many difficult and painful memories, and a whole lot of growing up over the course of twenty tumultuous years. I remain amazed that we are friends, through all of the strange changes and across such long distances.
In the last seven years we’ve seen each other exactly once – and he was ill and dosed up on cold medicine. We didn’t talk much during that visit, we just sucked down pho and sprawled around my Seattle living room.
But we write to each other pretty much every day, a constant fact for twenty years, and it is likely that we always will. James is one of my closest friends ever despite inconvenient geographic separation, and as such is the namesake of my son – he may even inherit said child if I depart too soon and Marisa decides that Ann Arbor is a good place for my kid to live.
James is also tasked with organizing whatever celebration marks my death. I do not want a funeral, and it will be his job to figure out what to do as a substitute. This is of course my logical response to the fact he told me he would not cry when I die – if everyone else is distracted by pesky emotions like grief, he may as well be the one renting a hall.
A few weeks from now we’ll meet up in Asbury Park to watch Jess marry Brian. Two nights and three days in New Jersey will not be anywhere near sufficient to catch up on everything that has happened in this adult lifetime, but that is irrelevant. Our friendship is not predicated on anything except love for each other.