We head north from Courtenay, on the way to meet Kymn, an old friend I haven’t seen for 4 years, what with life changes and Covid.
We drive by the gas station another friend used to own. It’s the old fashioned type with a two bay garage. The paint is peeling, although the gas pumps are still out front. I missed his funeral. He died of cancer, I think, not the heart attack we all expected from his red face and intemperate habits.
We worked in camps together before he bought the station. Oh, God, the fun we used to have! Crazy parties after days of hard work in the bush, with only ourselves and alcohol for entertainment, or maybe a board game where we made our own version of the rules.
His name is on the tip of my tongue. I see his face in my minds eye, hear his roaring laugh, but his name?
Vern. Now it comes, after my short visit with 30 year old memories.
And next we drive past the road where that April-December couple lived, the place where Don lit Brian’s hair on fire, not thinking it would catch, only amused by the fluffy ring around his balding top. We laughed till we cried, even Brian— those were the type of parties that couple had. She told me once that at 18 she had to choose between him, 20 years older, and having children, and the choice was easy. I wonder how easy it was 25 years later, when he died and she was left alone? By that time we’d moved away, so I never found out.
Nope. The faces are there, but not the names.
Why do we keep some friends and shed others when circumstances change? One of the people I am here to visit is Lynn, who on the surface was very similar. They both married young. All our husbands worked together. We partied and laughed together. Neither had children, although Lynn was godmother to mine.
Perhaps it was that we spent longer together as couples, holidayed together, although we only lived in the same town for three years. Perhaps it was because I tutored Lynn through a prerequisite Biology class, when she wanted to leave camp life and go back to school. Shared struggles and support. The husbands are gone, the children are gone, yet we are still friends. We do a three hour hike together and go for sushi after; you’d never know we hadn’t seen each other for more than 5 years.
And Kymn, the friend from high school we are hiking with today?
I was 12 when we met, hanging in the library and discussing the books that we had special permission to take from the senior section. Ayn Rand, Solzhenitsyn. The Limits of Growth, the Population Bomb, the Feminine Mystique. Science fiction. I suppose she was my first friend of the mind, although we also played field hockey together.
I only keep in vague touch with one other person from high school, but that friendship started a few years later, when I went crooked and Kymn stayed straight. Yet even though Kymn and I have never lived in the same town, after our brief stint as roommates post high school, we pick up the threads two years later, five years later, twenty years later, as if the conversation had never stopped.
The third friend I saw on the trip was a much newer “old” friend. I’d moved to Squamish when Raili was in grade 2, and when we went to the first Brownies’ meeting of the year I was looking to fit into our new community. Without thinking, I referred to this junior branch of the Girl Guides association as “a paramilitary organization.” There was a palatable, collective intake of breath and I swear all the other mothers stepped back.
Except Denise. She stepped forward.
Like love, friendship can start in mysterious ways, can wither or stay. I hang on to those precious relationships that still remain, no matter the distance. And some of my travels, this summer, are to visit old friends.
Brave Travels 