San Francisco Peaks, Flagstaff, Arizona

My Old Friend

Nothin’ Like ‘im

March 22, 2022

I have never been able to figure out if he is enigmatic or not. Still water runs deep. I guess one needs to sound it. Matters not, I like the look of that water, my friend.  Although occasionally a bit difficult to understand, my old friend is just that; an old friend. It seems like I have known him all my life, and that he’ll be around forever. That kind of friend. 

I call him an old friend not because he is along in years, but because I have known him for quite a good while. He never gets any older. Compared to me, well past the middle of trip but not yet ready for the home, he is young. Hell, his hair is still dark and he uses an alarm to wake up in the morning. You can tell a man is of a certain age, like me, when he no longer needs to be prodded to wake in the morning. But, in my view, that is where my friend is and will always be.

We are in frequent contact, although some times it is just a quick note. Other times we have long conversations. At least we do whenever there is time for him to come by for a while. You see, being young, it seems he is commonly on the go and spends his time in other places. For him, there is a burning need to see what’s on the other side of the hill, around the next bend in the trail. Not that he has anywhere in particular that he is headed, he is just smitten, yea smitten, with the adventure of life. He lives at home like a traveler. Everything is interesting, although not all is pleasing. But that does not matter, because it seems he is constantly up and doing with a heart for any fate. Do you recall those times? When you saw everything through the eyes of a child? I like to hear what my friend has to say when we do get a chance for long, slow walks and talks. And I miss him when he has to take off for a spell. It’s okay. He’ll be back. I hope.

It is hard to be clear about what sort of bin his character should go in. He is alternately analytical and poetic. A scientist at heart and by training, he waffles between the right and left sides of his brain. I bet it is noisy in his head. A constant balancing act of the elements of his character. But I think it is a good thing. Well suited for a scientist who, as Ed Abbey described, can communicate to the rest of us his sense of of love and wonder at what his work discovers. I’d say he is in a sweet spot. I like him and I like people that are themselves like him. Of course, he can be difficult. Honest, but sometimes uncomfortably blunt and does not suffer fools gently. Although never intentionally mean, his bullshit meter often pegs the limit of the scale and inevitably some smart-ass remark issues forth. Sic semper tyrannis, as it were. His physical presence amplifies that which is within. Tall, but not what you would call large, he can loom over things in the way I imagine Abe Lincoln did, with his head sticking up above the average crowd. And, too, you have to know that he has a large head with a lot of real estate on the front side. Like me, he does not have a forehead, he has a five-head. Mix in a slightly nasal, not particularly low voice and he can present as a cartoon character. Sort of a Jughead from the old Archie and Friends comic books my sister used to read. Basically slow of movement, he is largely unthreatening, generally interesting, and routinely obnoxious. Never a dull moment.

I am warmed by descriptions of his times, observations and experiences. His is clearly a time of regretting the need to put things down for the night and an eager anticipation, but not expectation, of the next day’s efforts. I envy him that. His responsibilities are few beyond the need to feed himself and maintain a decent shelter. Most all else is negotiable and he travels light. Wise fellow. So it would seem that he spends most of his time in the present moment. Funny isn’t it, how a young fellow can know how to do what the monks of Asia have pursued for millennia? 

Sometimes he describes his days in a way that makes them seem filled with magic and mystery. Like when he was in the desert of northern Arizona, out near a town on the Navajo Reservation called Moenkopi. Lots of fine red sand and sparse vegetation. The surface of the sand was blown smooth by the wind, with the hypnotic, symmetric ripples in its surface that only the wind can produce. Superimposed on this virgin surface, that seemed as timeless as eternity, were small, indeed tiny, dimples. You could imagine them looking like what would happen if you poked the surface of smooth sand with a sewing needle. That tiny. And symmetrically paired. He tells me of how he marveled and wondered, standing there in the still silence. Dropping to his knees he gazed along the trace of what now were clearly tracks. Following slowly along their course, he came to the bug, a beetle. Perhaps one half inch, or slightly more, in length. Now on his belly, he watched at eye level as this critter made its way to wherever its business was taking it. I can feel it as he describes the moment. All time had stopped. The entire universe was in that patch of sand beside the creosote bush. No yesterday, no tomorrow. Nothing else required attention but the beetle and the trail it left. And the sand would itself be blown clean again by the wind before the sun set. Rinse and repeat the next day, forever. Hearing him tell of the moment makes me jealous. Not just to be in that place, but in that state of mind. Kinda foreign to me in my later years and seems like something I have forgotten how to do. Rejoicing with every moment, hopeful for the next, and unworried about the past. Kinda like a dog I suppose. What do you mean I was bad? That was yesterday, this is today. What are we gonna do? Can we eat? I like to eat. No?, Then let’s play. Go pee. Take a nap.

With the beetle story, and many others, my friend provides me with a perspective on my own present state that can be both depressing and transformational. That’s what friends are, in part, for. My position on my own uni-directional time line becomes clearer. His friendship is a great gift. I wish I could tell him just what he means to me. But I think he knows. It is much easier for him to express himself to me than me to him. It’s an age thing and hard to explain.  The old space-time continuum conundrum.

It is in the fall of most years, that he seems to find the time to visit for a relatively extended stay. Although I have things to do everyday, we find time to share for a couple of weeks when the color of the sun on the landscape begins to grow warmer with its lower position on the horizon. The days are a bit shorter, and the breeze carries a subtle crispness and clarity. In my drifting imagination I irrationally think it smells like Canada. Perhaps the air has traveled from there? No matter. I hear his tales, the excitement in his voice, watch the spark in his eye and the spring in his step. We speak of places we have both visited, how they have changed, how we too have changed. And we laugh, and smile, and feel a warmth that is not expressed in words but, like the invisible rays from a campfire, is deeply felt and comforting. Our time is easy and always passes too quickly. But he will be back. And I will be waiting. Always waiting.