For my friend Lin, on their twenty-eighth birthday.
- I don’t remember meeting you other than it was at Quidditch practice which is a good sign if there ever was one
- You make me think of autumn coolness in Kasteel Well
- Of shopping for sweaters
- Of eating Italian in every European city
- Of Norway
- Diet Coke explosions
- Frozen fingers drawing in the sand
- A misplaced passport and
- Missed trains and
- A good story, though it didn’t feel like it
- Hobbes and Kip and Gilbert–
- That scene with the punches I saved and reread–
- My first glimpses at your writing magic, now I’m starving for it
- For the pirate stories, for the zombie stories, for a story about a brave kid chasing a river raft
- You didn’t run away when I told you about the whipping stories
- Or hugged walls
- Or grabbed your hand
- That dream I had about your face. It’s a good one.
- Sitting thigh to thigh in your loft bed, watching Firefly
- There was this moment before graduation, in my dorm room, where you held me when I cried. I have so few memories like that, tears that won’t stop met immediately by a friend.
- You’re asleep on camera again, during the wine years, and Cara and I talk ourselves to exhaustion instead of following your wiser example and rest.
- Sometimes you’d cry on camera, sometimes we’d all cry on camera, the three of us, during those wine years, and even when I thought we were a mess I still thought we were the best, doing the best we can, being brave
- I’ve always thought you’ve been very brave
- You race ahead and reach behind and drag us, me, with you
- And call more than text, thank you
- And tell us stories of kids in the library or bugs crawling out of patron’s decrepit laptops in the library and it is a beautiful and bizarre composition
- I think you’re both where you’re meant to be and going where you’re meant to be and I’m lucky to hold onto some piece of that, my friend
- Happy Birthday, I love you
With Love,
Natalie