It wasn't long before we were at the car, smoking another cigarette and encouraging Jeff and Juneau to jump in the back where a metal cage wall would keep them from excitedly clamoring over the seat and into my lap. The three backpacks were stuffed on the driver's side of the backseat leaving only enough room for me to squeeze in and sit, not comfortably and not uncomfortably, beside them. Myself standing at the rear passenger door and Ryan standing at the front, Steve stood on the curb before us and Ryan said, "I think we're going to spend tonight and tomorrow night, if we can, backpacking the first night and then car camping from somewhere closer on the second night so that we can get back in time to get Kevin to the airport."
I'll never know what the look that Steve gave me meant, whether it was one of judgment or wonder or confusion; but I had no words with which to respond to him. I had nothing I could say. I was along for the ride and if we were to stay two nights then we were to stay two nights and Ryan was good to be sure that I was staying at his behest, and though I felt awful about it, I was cowardly, if not openly, and that was the way it had to be. That was the look I hoped to impart back to his friend Steve, a small missive shot across the bough which would hopefully land with it's rightful owner. "This is how it has to be, friend," I thought and with that I sat down into the car with the door still open and Steve said, "Ok, well you guys have fun," and turned to walk away as the three of us shut our doors and said little about anything save our excitement that we were off on our way. And it was near 10:00 AM when I decided to roll my window down half-way to give the dogs some blessed oxygen, because it had grown quite warm in the back of that Subaru Outback!
We made our way out to I-70 and up to the foothills where we began our slow ascent into the Rocky Mountains. For much of the next few hours time began to slow down or speed up or whatever it is that happens when one thought leads to another and before one knows it one is somewhere altogether different. I remembered when John first introduced you, and he told you that he was leaving you in good hands. "I don't feel like 'good hands' today," I thought as I watched us cut through the mountains, aspen and beetle eaten evergreens covering the mountains on both sides of the highway. Ryan broke from conversation with Dawn a couple of times to turn around and look at me and smile. It wasn't until much later that I realized he wasn't looking at me at all, but instead at the amusing spectacle of Jeff and Juneau, intent on the next blast of air from my window, over my shoulder where the only open space to the back of the wagon was, one head on top of the other, leading Ryan to laugh out loud and proclaim, "Look at Jeff and Juneau! They look like a totem pole!" One turn to look behind me and I couldn't disagree. They were clowns, smiling and sneezing on the back of my neck, in the wind, grinning from ear to ear. And the sun was warm and the air felt like Spring, and I really couldn't have been happier.
"I'm not one to believe in 'energy', as it is, but I've got something here that defies explanation; even in my own vernacular, even though I know you assuredly would disagree, only because you are certainly difficult and stubborn that way. Still, you can't ignore, even though you don't know I know, what happened last week. It strikes me almost as lucid dreaming; all ideas 'good' and 'bad' aside, there are moments where we unknowingly will a connection into existence from a thousand miles away, repeatedly missing the mark, but impressing only the slightest, most delicate footprint on the awareness of the other. You will not see it, but it is clearer than day," I thought. "Crazy talk, to anyone else but me. What damned gift is that?"
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