There's Magic in People

   I can't remember exactly how the year went, second grade.  I think that my focus had already become scattered. Those things which alienate us from each other, personal oddities, a crimp in self-awareness, and even isolation outside of school hours made it hard for me to hold on to friendships. There are a lot of people I met when I was little, but some of them I miss more than others. 
     Chris is who this post is about. Chris was that kind of person who had a way of seeing magic in the world and if I spent time with her, she let me experience it through her eyes.  She was awesome like that, still is.
     On the playground at school we spent a lot of time involved in elaborate campaigns featuring our favorite Star Wars scenes.  It was either that, or we reenacted scenes from the book "Where the Red Fern Grows."  We didn't play people characters, just the hound dogs roles, Big Dan and Little Ann. We did an awful lot of running.
     Second grade holds a lot of memories for me. It was the first time I told someone, who wasn't family, that I loved them. That was Chris, when I hung up the phone with her.  My mother was not amused.  I think she believed it was impossible for a kid of 8 or 9 years old to have such feelings. And, much as I can remember, it was a friendly kind of love.  Like family, someone very dear to me.
     Chris moved away from the area sometime around the third grade.  She was my best friend.  We would talk on the phone for hours on end.  She and I exchanged letters.  Honestly, she wrote more than I did. But I held my own. 
     Chris was very kind, had eyes like fire and she had very short, sandy blonde hair, and freckles.  Short hair on girls was common at the time, thanks to Olympic Skater, Dorothy Hamil. However, her short hair still shocked my brother and I remember being embarrassed and angry, wanting to punch my brother when they first met for asking if she was a boy or a girl. My brother, Robert, always seemed thrown off by her.
     Nonetheless, Chris put me at ease with her logical mind.  Her unrelenting attention to detail and fresh outlook on things made me feel welcome in her presence. When meeting someone who puts you at ease like that, someone who makes you believe in yourself, I think that it's important to hold on to them. I try my best to learn from them, and learn with them.Chris has been no exception. But unfortunately, later in life, my world changed and I lost sight of that for a while.  As a result, there were a lot of years in my twenties and thirties where I did not know Chris, or even where she was. More about that later.
     Like I said, Chris had moved away from the area, just across town.  She was far enough away that I didn't see her often.  I was about nine years old when she came for a visit one day,  before my family moved even further away towards downtown San Diego. I was happy to see her. We ran off to the canyon at the end of the street.  The grass had grown so tall over the springtime that it stood over our heads.  We talked to each other while out of sight of one another, through the grass.  The tall, sand colored grass mixed with mustard plants and went on for such a large stretch that we finally just stopped and bent the vegetation over and pushed it back to lie down on a bed of it. We watched the clouds for a  time, making out shapes and admiring the beauty of it all. We talked and I remember just taking in the moment.  Across the valley, I could see the large crooked oak tree where my brother and I played and built a tree house. I could also see where the creek ran east to west in a thin line down the middle of the valley to where it ended in the small pond, which was surrounded by a thick growth of horsetail and reeds. 
     Being a kid had great benefits.  Chris's pockets produced a long party streamer, a paper ribbon, about two inches wide. As the wind picked up, Chris found a small thumb sized rock and tied the end of the ribbon around the rock and threw it into the air.  To my surprise the ribbon caught the wind and lifted up like a kite, rising higher and higher.  Her rock was up in the sky.  She had magically found a way to fly a rock like a kite.
     She reeled it in.  Near her feet, she gathered up another small rock.  She tore the long ribbon and handed me half with the rock.  I tied the end of the streamer around the rock and soon we were both flying our rocks in the grass on that summer afternoon. I don't know how long we were there, maybe half an hour.  But it was timeless. I knew in my heart I would never forget the enchantment of that moment. I was right. I can still see it clearly in my memory.
     Chris came out to San Diego for a visit a few years back. It was the Fourth of July Weekend. I introduced her to my family and we enjoyed her visit immensely. When my wife had asked how it was that Chris and I had lost touch for so many years, through my twenties, Chris replied. "I could see we were taking different paths." Indeed I had.  I lost sight of myself for too many years.  I forgot who I always wanted to be. 
     Time moves in strange ways. But although time can disconnect us from one another, the truth of friendships is that real friends will pick up where they left off. I feel that with Chris.  The sincerity I saw in her youth pervades through her even now. She still breathes magic into the world with her wide eyes. The depth of her curiosity goes on and on. Today, Chris is a fifth grade school teacher.  She inspires sharp, young minds in a school in Indiana.  Maybe I'm making too much of how I see her, but by the end of the night, fireworks lit up the sky. Even though it was the fourth of July, Chris made things much brighter. There is magic in people, certainly in Chris.