Trust

I spent some time today trying to write, but didn't come up with much of anything to show for it. That's how it goes, I guess. But in an effort to pass time I began sifting through old files and stumbled on some stuff I'd written a few years back. This is one of those. 

           His hands were dry and cold on my wrists, which were bony and strangled from the grip he held on with. My toes were planted firmly in the concrete edge of the trestle bridge. I stood straight ahead, eyes squeezed tightly shut. I knew the sky would be streaked red-gold and blue; clouds dividing the space in gradient color. But my eyelids cut off the pigment and doused my senses in cool, clear black. I squeezed tighter.

This was a bad idea. I could feel his palms start to sweat. Maybe this wasn’t as genius as we thought it’d be.  If he slipped a millimeter I’d be hurtling into the river below me.

I felt my pulse rise as I leaned forward, feeling hands on wrists cement their grip as I tilted out, a forty-five degree angle away from the edge, eyes shut, the breeze from the river pushing my hair off my forehead.  I felt him shift his weight away from me, then heard his boots digging into the gravel.

Trust, I heard him saying in my head. He’d done this with his brothers way back when. Before girls and college and careers resettled and reevaluated just how strong blood ties are. They’d come to the bridge and take turns hanging each other off, one boy to each arm of the trustee.

Rushing water down, down below me. His hands on my wrists. Cold, steady, still a little damp. I squeezed my eyes shut ever tighter. Shapes moved under my lids— inkblot cards shifting and sliding in and out of one another. My pulse still rising, breath caught in my chest, body rebelling its teetering position so far from safe ground— one man’s grasp the only substantial link that kept me from a fifty yard drop.

He said it always felt like you were flying— that after, he always felt more human. He said it gave him a bigger appreciation for his skin, his bones, the blood in his veins and the air in his lungs.

Carefully, I exhaled. Stretching my senses out and away to feel the space around me. I knew I couldn’t open my eyes to face it. Trees were rustling in the same breeze that’d flung my hair back. My arms and shoulders were stiff from keeping my body rigid enough to maintain contact with the trestle. My ribcage was pounding. If I didn’t fall to my death, I would either vomit or go into cardiac arrest.

 I hadn’t been feeling very human lately.

 Somewhere to my left a high whistle blew, close and maybe too close and too late. My toe slipped from the ledge to meet open air along with my left wrist. I felt him pull back hard on my right— I opened my eyes to the sound of a second whistle and saw the river down, down below me. Rocks stained pink by the setting sun, darker in pockets dampened by water.

My face collided with gravel, and his hands pressed me into the rocks as the train flew past us, the trestle shaking my bones, sending quakes through my nerves.  Grabbing a fistful of gravel I stared out over the water, not breathing until the train had passed.

In the stillness I inhaled quietly, tasting new air. 

“A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.”

 It’s 2am, and it seems like just an hour ago it was 10pm and I was heading to bed early. So much for that.

I have so much I want to write about, but how I am feeling right now is too overwhelming to veer away from it. So this will probably stay pretty on track.

I have had an unbelievable few weeks. Downright remarkable. And in the best ways. I spent July 1-12 touring the Midwest with two great Richmond bands- Shy, Low and Comrades- a good portion of whom happen to also be some of my best friends. The whole thing happened abruptly, all my friends were leaving town to tour and I was getting antsy about missing them with so little time left in RVA. Before I know it I’m climbing in the back of an early nineties Volvo station wagon and heading out on the road with them. That week and a half is still a blur, but it’s clear to me now why people love to live that way. So many moments of those 12 days are crystal clear in my head, and extraordinarily close to my heart.

I think at one point Ian, the bassist for Shy, Low, asked us a pretty echoing question while we stood on a rooftop in Chicago’s Wicker Park and watched fireworks go off in every direction around us as far as the eye could see. What he asked was simple, and rhetorical, but hit the nail square on the head:

“Do you ever just know that you’re experiencing something that you’re going to remember for the rest of your life?”

And that question completely explains everything I’ve been feeling both during and after tour.  It’s like I’m living my life with the red light on- trying to record as much as I can. Store it up. I’ve never felt like I’ve been inside such a fragile bubble of rose-tinted bliss.

I move in five days. I will pack every morning, teach every afternoon, and spend every evening I can in the company of the people I have left here that have affected me so deeply. One of them is still out on the road, as Shy, Low’s tour continued when Comrades and I came home. And I miss him like someone has removed a portion of my heart from my chest. On Saturday I will drive away from Richmond and I honestly believe that I will not be returning home. Maybe I’ll come back physically, but this place will cease to be to me what it has been all these years. In a lot of ways, Raleigh felt impermanent. Like my soul knew it would return before I really had time to miss it. And it was right. But my move to Indiana- my situation, my intention, all of it- is such a different animal than the one I was wrestling last December.

I am not going to miss this town. I’ve seen enough to know that a place is just a place. And it is not a city, but the people in it, that make it special to you. The friends I have here are the kind you cannot look for. You cannot find them through shared musical taste or moral convictions. While preferential similarities are nice, and lend to easy conversation and activities, this is not what has made my friendships here so strong. The people I have in Richmond who I call my friends have seen me grow and change- be it through almost a decade or just a single year- and have loved me, cared for me, and stood by me through all my mistakes and alterations. They have missed me when I’ve gone, been with me when I’ve returned, and held my hand through the darkest and brightest moments of my life. I have learned communication, trust, reliance, and most of all love from these friends. What ties us is a meeting of minds- of souls, even- and an echoing truth that in a world so full of deceit we can be honest and ourselves with one another. I have never had to hide from them, and I hope they’ve never felt they needed to hide from me. And these people are a small group- I can count them on one hand, easy. But their impact rocks me to my soul and reminds me every moment of every day how blessed I am to be graced with such unconditional and positive love. 

It’s not hard to leave Richmond, but it is hard to leave these relationships. In a lot of ways I’m used to having friends I need to say goodbye to- with how much I’ve traveled and the things I’ve done it’s a necessity. It’s easy to know that our friendships will not end but merely change shape. They’ll become friendships built on communication and phone calls and the occasional visit, not the drop-by-whenever and daily activities that they’ve been. And it is this change in the nature of our relationship that I’m dreading, because I adore what we have so much.  I hope it is not out of line to let you know that I will miss every day I do not see your face, hear your laughter, and participate in your daily life. I have not been lucky in life as to find many places I felt like I fit. In fact, most of my life has revolved around feeling out of step and unsure of how to feel at ease. But with you, I have found an unerring ability to be all of myself without feeling shame. You are the best people I know, and there will always be places in my heart that specifically hold your shapes.

I understand that without risk there cannot be a reward. But in this moment, at 2:45 AM, I cannot help but wish that by some magic I could have everyone and everything I love in one place. Because my passions lie elsewhere, but so many of the relationships that have helped me be strong enough to follow these opportunities are here. And while I live my life on a keen understanding that everything passes- that everything will always end up okay- I cannot think of much right now beyond how terribly I will miss you how badly I wish I didn’t have to. 

But it will be okay. Of that, at least, I am sure. This move is risky, but necessary. Because while my relationships here make me happy, my life away from them is a pretty dead-end road. The things I want to do and see are not here, and the biggest lesson I've learned this year is that the most important person I need to satisfy is myself. Leaving anything you love is hard, and there's been a lot of discussion of late about the taking of chances and the act of blind leaping without certainty of a net. I have opportunity that can lead to further opportunity where I'm going, and there are people there that I care about also and who are welcoming me into their lives with open arms. While picking up and changing everything isn't the easiest thing in the world, I know for certain that it is the difficult things that are the most worthwhile. And the goodbyes definitely scare me, but I'm looking forward to my next adventure-- and am exceptionally humbled and thankful for how much this last one has prepared me for it. Because I am ready to jump. 

So here goes nothing. 

xoxo