Monday, March 8, 2010

Stargate

Having reached a personal goal for the Paper of Doom by which I have been held captive the last few weeks (and will be held captive for another month, at least...Seriously, this is the biggest paper I've ever had to write. Blurg.), I decided to treat myself to an old Stargate Atlantis episode on hulu. It was "the Prodigal," for those of you in the know--the one where Michael comes back and tries to blow up Atlantis, or, as I like to think of it, the one where Ronon stops being a putz, finds love, and writes his first and only mission report. In any case, watching the show brought back fond memories of when I used to drive down to Seattle for Stargate Fridays.

I remember jetting out of Mount Vernon in my little red shoe,* singing along with whatever cd happened to be playing in the car, feeling the cares of teacher-hood peal away with every mile. I would park in the same old patch of grass along one of Seattle's impossibly slender side roads, experience the same momentary panic as I tried to remember which buzzer was Adrienne and Josh's apartment and which was their neighbor's, and hear the same joyous cries of "Sarahdunn!" as I climbed up the stairs. And then, oh joy! Oh rapture! How sweet it was to be in the company of friends, to exchange greetings with people who knew what you were like at 2 in the morning--but liked you anyway, to have impossibly long and intricate conversations about nothing of consequence, to share things of very great consequence and be understood (or at least to have the effort made). Those times were like water to my parched little soul after a dreary week spent all alone in my thin-walled cat-box of an apartment in Marysville.
Now we're spread out a little farther than before. Our lives are growing out like tree branches, and it makes me wistful. I really don't call or write half as much as I wish I did. I just read your blogs and smile when I think of you. Sometimes I tell the friends I've made here stories about you (good ones). But I'm so grateful to know you, and to have such a rich store of memories made with you that watching sci-fi reruns becomes like looking through a picture album in my heart.

I look forward to seeing you again, and adding more pictures.

Thanks, friends.

*'Little Red Shoe' is the name of my car. It was a gift from my Grandma (the name, not the car).

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