Visits

When I close my eyes at night,
and all my limbs go numb, melting into my sheets,
and I finally steady my breathing,
and my brain shuts down; my worries still.

That is when vulnerability creeps over me,
as I drift off to the unexplainable,
where suddenly, my mind is stretched open wide,
inviting in anything and all things.

Like putty, my mental state is soft,
and this is when you choose to talk.
When I am fully open and accepting,
you come say hello.

You tell me you're okay.
And for that second, you aren't really gone.
For the time, I still hear your voice and smell your smell,
and you laugh with me and we talk about life, as if it still exists.

You hug me close,
you tell me how happy you are to see me.
We lament over how awful it would be if it was true;
if you were no longer.

And before we have the chance to say goodbye,
I am shaken awake each time.
But I love that blissful moment of dreaminess,
before I become fully aware of my surroundings.

Because, in that small fraction of a second,
the truth isn't real.
The truth is in what you told me, only moments ago,
that you are still here, and everything is okay.

But when I wake up,
the dark veil that honesty is,
slides back over my eyes,
and smothers me in what I don't want to know.

I go through my days and wonder if you're watching,
I wonder if the talks we have at night are even real.
Like a detective, I try and uncover the messages you send me,
but it's always the same:

There you are,
here I am.
It's okay,
and I'll see you again soon.

In the meantime, I breathe in the daylight,
and ask you, do you visit anyone like you visit me?
But I don't look for the answer,
I just hope you don't stop.

Leaving

I left for awhile.

But now I'm back.

I sometimes have the itch to leave Franconia. I wake up in April and the ground is brown, with rain drizzling down all my windows. It's cold. It's slush. It's mud season.

I went out west and visited my sister in Oregon. Her boyfriend seems to like it out there and each time I see him he asks me when I'm moving.

Why not? Why stay in Franconia?

At first, I don't know the answer to the question because it's a valid one. Why not leave? Then I start to panic.

Is something wrong with me? Should I want to leave?

So I start to think that maybe I should. Maybe I should say goodbye to this tiny town where people love to stick their noses in others' business. It's hard to find a job. It's even harder to find a place to live. Sometimes, I wonder why people even bother visiting here.

But then I walked down the street in Portland, Oregon and I was freezing, yet my hands were sweating against my coffee cup because I was so nervous. Is that person looking at me? He looks like a killer. Rapist? That one's homeless. Did he just ask me for food? Where do I find a good cup of coffee? Oh, here's a coffee shop. Everyone is looking at me. "Mocha, please." Six dollars?! God, it smells like trash. I need to cross the street, where is the crosswalk? Do I walk now? Oh, no. Wait, now? Okay they're honking. GO! 

By the end of the walk, I was exhausted and just wanted to get back into my sister's apartment. And that's when it hit me. As much as it can suck to have other people in my business, at least I have people. My sister has been there almost three years and she is surrounded by hundreds more people than back home, yet, friends are hard to come by.

I like going into the grocery store and having the cashier know my name. I like that my coffee is delicious, and affordable. I like Franconia. Sometimes I just have to leave to realize it.

I left for awhile.

But now I'm back.

I Couldn't Even if I Tried

I do not remember meeting you; I just remember you always being there. We were small, hyperactive, imaginative little kids. There was this time, when you lived on Harvard street, I will never forget, your neighbor spent all afternoon raking leaves, and the little shits that we were, of course we jumped in them. Of course, because we were five, and it was Fall, and you were you, and I was me. And they went everywhere. He was so angry, because he had stepped away just for a moment, to find plastic bags to rake them into and discard of them. But we beat him. You staked it out all day. That was all you could talk about; the giant pile of leaves we were going to jump into. So we jumped in them, and strewed them all over his yard and your yard, laughing, and staining our clothes with their colors.

And, it isn't just the time, or the place that I will remember, but each time I smell that holy rotten smell of wet, soggy, raked up leaves, I think of you. I will always think of you. It isn't about the U.S. Ski Team, or the times we spent on skis, as everyone is making it out to be. I know that was a big part of you, but it wasn't the only part of you. It's about the simple things we did together, the stupidity of it all: you eating dog food for a snack for a large portion of our childhood, no matter how much your mom or I protested. You convinced me to try it once. It was awful. We went camping, that one time, I'm sure you remember, and my dad somehow had bad aim and peed on his sock. He was so mad, but we laughed. And laughed some more, even when we were 20, and would think back on that camping trip.

And that's the thing, too, is that with you, it was always laughter. It was always fun. And this isn't funny. This isn't fun. No. This is horrible, and painful, and not at all fair. And I don't place any of those adjectives next to you when I think of you, but somehow, that's all I feel when I think about this. When I think about that I never can laugh with you again, my heart swells up into my throat. When I continue to realize the fact that I will never speak to you or see you again, I become mad. So God damned mad. I feel cheated. I feel jaded.

I know you wouldn't want me to cry. I know you wouldn't want me to be angry. I know, somehow, you would find a way to make this fun. You would look on the brightest side of it, and bask in that light as long as it lasted. You would do all you could to make this good, because you were good. You were so, so good.

Then there is this part of me that wonders if I am even qualified to be speaking on the subject of you, and who you were, or what you were about. Yes, we were attached at the hip until we were 12, but after that, we started to go on different paths. You became serious about ski racing, and left in the winters. We grew up. Life rolled by. We found different friends, gained different knowledge, enjoyed different hobbies.

But then, I think how every time you came back to town you called me. You never hesitated to reach out. Our lives were so different. I worked all the time, as did you, but differently. Yet, you'd come eat lunch where I worked if it meant we could sit and chat for five minutes. If we could hug, and catch up. And of course, you'd be there if it meant we could laugh. So I second guess myself, again, and say, yes, Paige, you are overqualified. Because to me, you were the best of a friend.

And after you started to reach your goals, after you were named to the team, and killing it in races, we made a deal. We agreed that when you won a bunch of gold medals and made all your success and retired, I was to write your book. We shook on it. We promised. But, you were only here to begin your first chapter. How could I possibly create a novel from only a few pages of life? You should be here. You should be living, and experiencing, so one day we could sit down and talk about it, and put it all down on paper. But you aren't here, and you won't be, and I hate that.

To the world and the headlines, you are Ronnie Berlack; fallen skier and prospect of the U.S. Ski Team. But to me, you are, and always will be, Ronnie; my oldest and closest friend who lost to me in the Roland Peabody Slalom in the third grade. (You beat me in the Gary O. Whitcomb GS in the afternoon, don't think I've forgotten). You are my one of many tall friends, but you were the only one who never ceased to remind me how short I was, and still am. You are the person who no one expected much out of, but you triumphed, and ended up being the most successful out of any of us. To me, you will always be you. And I will always miss you, for the rest of my days.

You, my friend, will be forever young. Forever skiing, forever laughing, forever causing the mischief you were always up to. I love you, I miss you, and I will never, ever forget you. I couldn't even if I tried.

(Bottom photograph taken by Kathleen Humphreys).