beautiful, funny, sad & true

Thursday night I talked on the phone to my friend, and she said that she’s feeling good enough for a visit. Thursday night I had a dream that I can’t recall the details of, but it involved her, and we were consciously making an effort to be as close to each other as possible. We would walk in various places, slowly, with one of our hands on the other’s back or shoulder. We would sit somewhere, either to rest or to admire a particular view, and our legs touched because we sat so close and turned toward each other. It was a very beautiful dream, and much more based in reality, in a way that the vast majority of my dreams are not.

I went to visit her last night. After a long hug, we sat and held hands for two hours. We talked about big things and small things, sad things and funny things. We talked a lot about this experience. She had some questions, and so did I. I tried to limit the discussion about my own shock and pain, because I didn’t want to distress her further. There will be plenty of time for that discussion in the future. She seems to be making good progress, but she’ll be there for a while. I’m going to visit her again tonight.

Monday was a day of huge leaps of recovery for my friend. The drugs she took seem to have pretty much cleared out of her system on that day, and since then she’s been talking, and crying, and walking a little, and slowly but surely getting her strength back. She was able to use the phone yesterday, and we had the chance to talk for about half an hour. She sounds and seems like her usual self, but she’s still got a very long road ahead of her. Some of the things we talked about were heart-wrenching.

I found myself feeling guilty that I hadn’t found her earlier. She had been lying there not for an hour or two like I had guessed, but for more than a day. That broke my heart. Someone told me this morning that “you never know what good is going to come out of all this,” and while it may feel like a hollow platitude, at least it’s better than some of the strange or even hurtful things people have already said to me.

I finally got the chance to talk with CincinnatiFriend, whose opinions I value more than anyone’s, especially in matters like these. She put it into perfect perspective by saying that the only people we can help are the people who want to be helped. If they’re intent on harming themselves, they’ll find ways to do it, and they can be very crafty about hiding the warning signs. She also said, essentially, that the only way we can deal with difficult things is to do what we can with the information that we have available to us. Hindsight is always 20/20, and we shouldn’t use our newer knowledge to beat ourselves up later.

The biggest truth of all, though, is that I’m just incredibly thankful that my friend is alive, and that she’s in the right place, both geographically and emotionally, to get the help that she needs.

I have to hand it to Tossed In for coming up with the best opening line of a blog that I’ve read in quite a while.

“Considering it was Hitler’s birthday, today was so-so.”

Cracked me up. And silly me for missing such a special occasion. How should someone celebrate that, anyway? What do you get for someone who’s responsible for the deaths of eleven million people? I ask you.

Anyway.

The mixing with Andrea went great, and we’re really satisfied with the results. Special kudos once again to DrummerAdam, who completely ruled on those songs, and every time I listen to them, I’m reminded of that fact.

Saturday I was awakened by a strange knocking sound. I got up and walked into the studio, to find a robin sitting in the tree outside the window, staring in at me.

I also couldn’t help but notice how much snow had fallen overnight, so I walked out front to find this tranquil scene:

I must’ve been quite a sight, in my long-sleeved T-shirt, pajama pants, and Doc Martens with no socks. Well, sometimes looking ridiculous is a small price to pay for the sake of Great Art.

I was the first one awake, since I’d slept (or should I say NOT slept?) in my sleeping bag on the floor in the drum room, so I dinked around online for a while, until everyone else woke up. Once they did, Andrea and I went for a walk through the golf course, to take pictures and just get some fresh air for a while, after being cooped up inside all the day before.

We both took about a million pictures, and good thing we did, too, because all the snow had melted by mid-afternoon.

After we were done with mixing, I drove the hour back to Portland, showered, changed my clothes, and then went on a really great date. We were lucky enough to get two rainbows; one in its actual form, in the sky - “Hey, that’s a good omen!” she said - and the other in sushi form; a rainbow roll. It was a wonderful evening - “Let’s do that a whole bunch more times,” I said - and here’s to a ‘whole bunch more’ weekends just like this one.

I came across this this morning, too, and thought it was beautiful. It was in one of those ‘bulletins’ that doesn’t tend to stick around for very long, so I wanted to capture it and share it here.

When we view our fellow human beings, we should look as we do at rose bushes. All have flowers and thorns. Some are strong rooted, some weak. Disease weakens some, while others are healthy. The environment from which each bush grows helps shape its life, but none is all flowers, and none is all thorns. Love helps us to understand the function of the thorns and to appreciate the blooms.

Please understand my thorns.

I know, I know. I could so easily tie it in with the 80’s Röck thing if I were to just say the simple phrase, “Every rose has its thorn (yeah, it does),” but that would trivialize and ruin such a beautiful sentiment, and I would never dream of doing that.

The NumberOneThing I expect from my friends is honesty. If we don’t have honesty, then to put it simply, I’m not interested in being friends.

If we’ve HAD honesty in the past, but circumstances have changed enough that it’s too difficult or not something that’s of interest to you, that makes me really sad, because I’ve already come to expect honesty from you. When you can’t (or won’t) step up and provide it now, then I’m really disappointed.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If we’ve had honesty in the past, and then lost it for a while, but then you come back around and show effort–no matter how little it is, or how difficult it may feel for a while–then that’s what close friendships are built upon, and ours can be rebuilt too. I’ve been lucky enough to experience that a few times now.

But if you’re not interested, you’re not interested. If my friendship isn’t going to be reciprocated, I’m going to put my energy to more constructive use, where it will be appreciated and reciprocated.