Out West, On Friendship

We’ve been to South Dakota and Colorado.

While we were in Colorado, we stayed with my friend from college, Alison, and her beautiful family.  Our girls became fast friends, each of them crying the night before we had to leave (Hadley in private, Harper full on sobbing in front of everyone). They have promised to be pen pals, and I hope to help them keep that up, because the Railsback girls are good friends to have.

During our visit in Longmont, we packed a picnic and spent some time sitting on the banks (and wading in) of Saint Vrain Creek, part of the water system that flooded a few years ago. Jesse said it was the worst flooding in 2013, and looking at the pictures of the streets split in two alongside the mountains, I believe it. Even in its calm state, the river rumbled along sweeping sticks swiftly down its path.

We spent the first twenty-five minutes telling the girls, Hadley especially, that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES can they go any further than a certain point because YOU WILL GET SWEPT AWAY. Hadley looked at me like I was ridiculous, as she always does when I tell her she cannot do something. Then she looked at the bridge a few feet away and watched as teenagers jumped from it into the water. They plunged down and stayed down so that it seemed everyone on land held their breath in hope for a few startling seconds until they popped up and we all let out a collective “HOORAY!” Again and again the teenagers did this; whooping and hollering and Hadley watched, then turned to me, dipped her toe in the rapids, then her foot, then took another step until the rapids brushed against her knees and I pleaded, “Hadley stop. You can’t. Please, stop.”

I hate disappointing Hadley. I hate telling her that she cannot do something. I hate that she doesn’t trust me. I hate when I am a nag; constantly saying, “No, no, no.”

Jesse took Hadley across the bridge and onto the other side to explore with Clifton (Alison’s husband), while Alison and I stayed and watched the rest of the crew.

Alison and I picked up right where we left off, whenever that was. I talk to her the same way I have since that day in January 1995 when we met at Calvin. Of course everything has changed, and nothing has changed. She’s still Alison and I’m still Callie.

We flinched every time a teenager jumped, and we continued to talk about our lives: kids and husbands and friends and family and all of it.

“Do you realize,” Alison said as she pointed towards the water,” that there is about a two foot space that the water is deep enough to jump into? Look at those rocks.” She was right. If you were to jump, you had to be precise in the movement, and get yourself right into that space. Otherwise, you would get swept away with the rapids or, well, I don’t want to describe the other. Alison kept her eyes on the teenagers and our kids as we talked. I watched our kids and continued to flinch each time I heard the thunk of a body splashing then the rapids that threatened to take it away.

A dog jumped in, chasing after a ball or a stick, and got stuck in the rapids.  It was struggling to swim and Alison made a move to go in after it.  The dog’s owner got to the dog and returned the pup to safety, so Alison didn’t end up in the water.

“You have to do that for dogs, too?” I asked her, referring to her profession. She is a doctor.

“It’s instinct,” she said. “But I’m bound to the promise I made.”

Teenagers jumped, Hadley sat across the water from me on a large rock and watched, the younger girls were making a fence of rocks in the river to try and block the rapids. Alison and I laughed; there’s no way that water can be stopped.

“OK, so if the owner hadn’t gotten to the dog, and you went in, what could I do to help?” I asked, rocking from side to side.

“I’d probably yell, ‘Callie! Head towards that rock and meet me there!'” Alison pointed to a boulder (I guess it was a boulder; you know I don’t know these things, but it was sturdy enough for me to stand on and jump off of if I needed to). I’ll admit, I was excited at the prospect of a rescue. “I can do that,” I told her. “I’d be ready for that.” I believed, and as I type this, I still believe that I am strong enough to swim down that river and save a dog with my friend of twenty years.

We didn’t talk about it, but I thought about all the ridiculous stunts we pulled at Calvin. Stunts that were stupid and a little dangerous and I won’t go into detail here because of course all students who go to Calvin only think about offering our hearts to God promptly and sincerely, right? And of course there’s not a thing dangerous about that prospect. I started to wonder if Alison and I weren’t creeping up on 40, if we were with our group of friends from Kalsbeek-Huizenga, if we were just beginning to imagine what it was we would do with our lives, whether we’d jump off that bridge. I think we would.

There’s something magnificent about a friend who knew you before you became a mother, and can still talk to you the way you were before you became a mother. Alison talks to me like I’m funny, like I’m confident and bold; she talks to me and I feel 19 again. I wish I knew how to let that side come out so Hadley could see it.

At home that night, Alison got out scrapbooks from college.  Hadley and Naomi sat on either side of me and looked at pictures, and we all gasped and giggled and Hadley said, “YOU did THAT? That was YOUR idea?”

“YUP,” I said ever so proudly, “I sure did.”

She couldn’t believe the photo of me, smiling, holding a hand-written message on the back of a napkin: I LOVE JESSE. She put her finger on his name and said, “That’s Daddy,” and I leaned towards her and said, “I hadn’t even spoken to him when I wrote that.”

Hadley rolled her eyes and smacked her forward. “Listen, girl,” I said. “When I know, I know.”

Alison put on Jock Jams while dinner was prepped.  At each song’s beginning, I said, “I know this one! I know this one! What is it? What is it?” Alison and I wouldn’t know until the first word started and then we’d laugh and sing along and the laughter felt like relief; of course you remember this, of course you know all the words.

I taught Hadley how to do the Tootsie Roll that night. She wore my Calvin hat while she danced.