Magnificent!
Fabulous!
Amazing!
Words and photos are lame in describing the experience.
~JD, Postcard from the Icefields Parkway
My friend, JD, and her husband were away for a month on a cross-countries road trip of the US and Canada. I have spoken with her but for a few minutes since her return, as traveling 8,453 miles in one month necessitates unpacking, sorting through and putting away, and plenty of rest in a bed that’s just right. In the thimble of minutes that we spoke, she assured me that the trip was fantastic and smooth, save for little glitches like missed road signs (and the resulting drive of forty miles in the wrong direction) and malfunctioning memory card (necessitating the purchase of a quartet of disposable cameras).
On rainy days, I like to stay connected to the hidden sun by brainstorming lovely, fresh ways to describe sky blue. A couple of exemplars:
The streets glistened with fresh snow and the sky was a blameless blue. ~Khaled Hosseini, Kite Runner
i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky. ~e.e. cummings
JD’s eyes are sky blue. As I toss about word combinations, the picture in my mind alternates between eyes and sky, and sometimes a surreal vision of eyes in the sky. Thinking of JD traveling along the Icefields Parkway, I imagine the magnificent, Barbados-blue Peyto Lake with but the colorlessness of a sad glass of tap water left forgotten on the kitchen counter, until being blessed and transformed by the reflection of JD’s gaze. (JD will sigh at my tendency toward the dramatic.)
I missed JD while she was away. There is much to miss. Aside from those glacier pool eyes, she is funny. Not LOL funny, but JD possesses that rare and quiet humor in which, if one is patient and attentive (and a little lucky), she may be granted behind-the-scenes access to the thought that tugs JD’s lips up into a waxing crescent grin.
She is kind. JD is not the dreadlocked Peace Corps posterchild building schools out of mud nor does she tote a megaphone, boasting of the donations she has made. As with her humor, her kindness is quiet and true. I think of the advice given in Anna Karenina to Kitty by her father, Prince Shcherbatsky, when Kitty raves about how good and kind her new acquaintance is, exclaiming that all her father need do is ask, for everyone knows of the good deeds of her acquaintance. The wise Prince replies,
It’s better when one does good and you may ask everyone and no one knows.
That’s how it is with JD. I know that I will never know the extent of her generosity.
My favorite (and most called-upon) quality of JD is that she is the essentially perfect teacher. She does not condescend, asking in drawn out syllables after each sentence if I am sure that I understand. Nor is she the maddening Zen master who refers to me as grasshopper or ant or Jiminy Cricket before answering my question with a nonsensical Carroll-esque query. JD explains matters in a straightforward, practical way, going into the needed amount of detail, neither too big picture and nebulous nor grating and Lilliputian. Her answers fit me like the baby bear’s chair, just right.
Earlier this year, I traveled out west. From my window seat, I was silenced by the awesome (true definition of the word, not the slang diminutive preceded by the adjective totally) Grand Canyon. After arriving in Las Vegas, I obsessed over thoughts of Eastern settlers journeying westward. I had visions of dead bodies sloped along cliffs, widows wailing into the canyon, babies shriveled and thirsting, all set to the Last of the Mohicans theme. Try as I might, I could not lift my mind out of that rocky gorge.
I called JD. I needed to hear her voice, as reassuring as a warm bowl of porridge. I was too embarrassed to admit to her the intensity of my anxiety, instead I casually mentioned the peril the settlers had faced in crossing the Grand Canyon. JD explained that, while of course, the journey westward was wrought with danger and great difficulty, the settlers did not cross the Grand Canyon. The settlers had traveled “western ways” such as the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Old Spanish Trail. And, the settlers had help, from the Native Americans intimately familiar with the land and from guides who had traveled the way before. (My apologies, Mr. S. You really were a great US history teacher. The fault in forgetting is all mine, Sir.)
I do not know the psychological term for this phenomenon, but my mind had somehow equated my life challenges to crossing the Grand Canyon—all alone. My default is thinking that I am all alone, that I need face and overcome every obstacle singlehandedly. But, JD said that the settlers had help. Others already knew the way. I too have help, a mere seven digits away, from the wise and good and beautiful JD, my blue true friend (the true meaning of the word, not the Facebook version that requires the pressing of a Confirm button.)
Welcome home, JD!
(Lord willing, as my grandmother used to say, I will see JD tomorrow. I just hope that I don’t charge at her full steam, like Goldilocks fleeing the three bears’ cottage!)