THE MYSTERY OF HISTORY
each time you'd pull down the driveway i wasn't sure when i would see you again...
On a rainy and wet Friday the thirteenth, the four of us are cruising on into Galveston. Come in on the far end of the seawall, working our way west along the strips of restaurants, hotels, and surf shops. Camper trailers lined the parking spaces along the edge of the seawall. This was a sight previously unseen in Galveston, hard hit by hurricane of late.
yours was a twisted blind-sided highway no matter which road you took then

We were headed for a little place we call "just past reality". See, what you do is you drive down the seawall until you come to an odd little tollbooth in the middle of nowhere. You go on past the tollboth, over the bridge, and drive until you are just past reality, then hang a left and find a beach....

This is what we remembered, three of us girls. Trips out here with boys of significance. A bonding voyage. Pomagranetes, cintronella candles, incense and wine. Now we have grown up concerns and turn to each other in the wildness of nature and the rolling surf.

oh you set up your place in my thoughts moved in and made my thinking crowded

These girls I have known and loved for years. I remember befriending Pegah when I saw other girls, my friends at the time, bullying her. They called her a liar, and a theif, and I wanted to get to know her, because that must have been difficult to deal with, especially when you feel alone. That was eighteen years ago. 1991. I know she is none of those things. She is one of the most genuinely sweet people I have ever met. And just gorgeous.

Lara I had met on the cross country team that same year, or maybe '92. We had several random moments together in high school and the start of college. We lived in the same town while in college and our paths crossed only right at the beginning and right at the end. Then we split for opposite coasts. We both returned home, and ran into each other at the Wal-Mart I frequent some four or five years ago. We've been inseperable ever since, and I love her dearly more each day.

Jennifer is my "sister", my "live in liver", and has been a constant friend since we met at the beginning of college, when we were twenty. She has always understood me best of anyone I knew. In our early twenties, we lived together.

When I was home from college on the weekends, I partied with Pegah. We were all about the nightclubs. Jennifer and I were off on a hippie trip back in College Station. I still had the beaded curtain when I moved off to California...and I had it this night, in my pack...

now we're out in the back with the barking dogs

My big plan was to pull out the curtain and we could use it to draw ourselves a circle of stars, in which we would sit and join together in our mutual energies to help each other. Pegah was going through a rough time, and we've always had those kind of dark energies in our life. We were there to help her, and help each other.

We expected things to be different in Galveston, considering the damage from Hurricane Ike. As we drove west and started to leave "reality" behind, the beach houses looked washed clean to me. They were structurally sound and seemed to be smiling in the light. Jennifer had a completely different perspective, though.

We made a stop at some very odd area just before the bridge, and the toll booth we remember. It was a long walk down a pier that just ended with open hanging ends on both sides, about a six foot drop to the sand below (I was going to attempt to do an earthcache there in the dark). As we turned back, Jennifer talked about how spooky this place was, and we were all a little creeped out when we got in the car.

Then we drove over the bridge, a long trip in misty fog, and hit a "Road Closed" sign. We couldn't get "Just Past Reality" because the road no longer existed. We all kept our eyes peeled for any "Ike Zombies" out there. We were certain they were hiding behind the sand dunes.

Finally we found a secluded beach on which to lay our blanket. Lara had brought the wood, and Jennifer made the fire, with her little headlight on and looking all "Jibber". Jennifer hustled that fire, all eight months preggy, and wasn't afraid to bust that baby belly out when the cops showed up...three times. Four different cars. The first time, I was pulling up my shorts, having been in the process of changing. He drove right up and told us the neighbors would call to complain about the fire. The second and third were buddies, and when Pegah and I got up the nerve to go talk to them, they were laughing and telling us to go on back, we were cool, they talked to the first guy, and now were just hanging out there. Then Pegah and I disagreed the whole way back on if they were saying we could or couldn't have a fire. We just didn't see it the same way.

my heart the red sun

When we were finally settled, Pegah and Lara went to check out the water. Pegah was in her element, I understand. Jennifer and I sat on the blanket together and started singing songs. We were singing old school shit, back from when we first started hanging out, songs from our adolescent youth. We both had a latent Indigo Girls stage. We sang our favorite, "Ghost", then made our way to Simon and Garfunkel, "Homeward Bound," a round of "Romeo and Juliet". She looked so beautiful and "her self" in the moment, and I wondered at how amazing it was that we could still connect like this. How many years we've been singing the same songs.

I ask her what she wants to sing next, and she thinks.

Then she turns to me and says, "What about Mystery?"

It's a song from an Indigo Girls album from 1994, the one I listened to so much freshman year of college, around the time I met her. It is one I can't remember off hand, but know I sing along when it is on.

So she starts it....(lyrics throughout, bold italic)

your heart the moon clouded

When the girls came back, we sat around the fire for a little bit. Lara and I went out to the water. The moon hid behind clouds and peeked out every so often. We waited for it. Lara swore it was beautiful. Meanwhile, the waves kept coming. The shadows of the night air were caught underneath the curl of the foam, and I kept expecting the shadows to continue once the water hit the land, hit the groud running, but they never did, and it was catching me off balance. It was freaking me out. The moon came out from behind the cloud, and I tried to record forever the image of it shining over the waters with the shadows that kept coming, but the camera is in imperfect visual recorder. To the left is how the picture turned out. A blank nothing. Only space held together with little flecks of light. With the flash, it is not much better, filled with "orbs" or some such shit.

I could go crazy on a night like tonight

I pulled out the star curtain, which turned out to be a mess we had to unravel. Meanwhile, another cop pulled up, and shone his lights on us. I was getting freaked out because I kept saying we were going to put the fire out, but Pegah was insistent on keeping the fire going. I kept pouring our water on it when the cops showed up. It is just like us, with me trying to put on the pretense of obeying the rules and her rebelling.

when summer's beginning to give up her fight

But it was the fire that wouldn't die, and in the end, only finished with Jennifer wetting the coals, then covering it with wet sand. And during our time there, we shared energy, passed along affirmations, both for ourselves and for each other, and set goals for the beginning of the new moon, a new phase, a time of growth and new beginnings.

and every thought's a possibility

Together, my friends and I, we dreamed dreams. We shed inhibitions. We talked about what makes us most vulnerable, and how to combat it. We called to the guardians of the watchtowers, and we bid them hail and farewell. I shall never forget the waving arms of four beautiful women wishing away the spirits of the night.

and voices are heard but nothing is seen

And in the end, we battled the sleep monster while driving back to the hotel through the fog of forgotten dreams and reconfirmed visions. We looked around the town for a place to get Jennifer a snack, but all we got for our large circle was to end up back at the beginning, at an Exxon station.

why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery
Most of my friends know how I lament the loss of friendships. Why? I always wonder. How can you be friends with someone for any length of time and then just let that go? I understand that people change, but underneath it all, aren't we still the same people we have always been? Perhaps, though, the bigger mystery is not why friendships end, but why they don't. People don't change, but they evolve, and continuing to maintain friendships involves work, and dedication, and understanding. It involves trust that the person you have evolved into is still someone the old friend can respect and love. In the face of changing life situations, religious beliefs, moral viewpoints, education levels, interests, family changes, children, spouses, how is it that fifteen years later, we can be sitting on the same beach singing the same songs we know by heart as we did when we met?

But I still believe in the importance of history. That's why I hang on. It's like hanging on to it makes it real.

so what is love then

is it dictated or chosen

does it sing like the hymns of 1000 years

or is it just pop emotion

and if it ever was here and it left,

does it mean it was never true ,

and to exist it must elude,

is that why i think these things of you ?

And I am glad we had this night. I will have that image etched in my mind always of Jennifer's singing face in the moonlight, of the feel of the firm beach beneath my body, the incredible feeling of peace when we all closed our eyes and held our minds open to the night, releasing all the negativity pent up inside, of Lara's hair shining with mist in the moonlight.

but i could go crazy on a night like tonight when summer's beginning to give up her fight and every thought's a possibility and voices are heard but nothing is seen why do you spend this time with me maybe an equal mystery

...................................................

oh but you like the taste of danger

We had little bites from sand fleas or something akin when we got back to the hotel, dirty and dusty and dog-gone tired. I think I was snoring before Jennifer and Lara got done with showers. I am so sad we didn't get to sample the liquor Pegah brought from home that I had chilled. I didn't want to bring it to the beach because I had a bag full of candle holders and was afraid it would break. Maybe I was afraid to be responsible for something so fragile.

it shines like sugar on your lips

In the morning, we went down to get some breakfast. It was all too sweet for Jennifer, who has to watch her sugar. As we ate, she decided to see if having a piece of toast with peanut butter would work for her. I don't think it worked out that way. We drove down the seawall going back towards the Strand, and saw people outside everywhere in green and black hats, pulling carts of beads down the sidewalks, climbing out of camp trailers.

and you like to stand in the line of fire just to show you can shoot straight from your hip

Mardi Gras Galveston was about to kick off with the parade on a chilly and misty Saturday morning. We saw the floats as they pulled into position as we drove out into the residential area.

As we drove through the Galveston area, we saw some places that were still badly damaged. Some places that would never reopen. Some were vestiges of Galveston's heyday, like the Flagship Hotel, right off the water.

In the end, I felt like this place had been through a trial by fire, and had come out on the other side stronger. I had told the girls a story I read on the geocaching logs for nearby caches, a story about a man and a woman surviving the storm by clinging to the rafters of their attic. That's bravery, or insanity. I can't imagine risking your life to stay with your home during that storm.

there must be a 1000 things you would die for

i can hardly think of two

but not everything is better spoken aloud

not when i'm talking to you

On our way out of town, we answered some questions for a couple of virtual caches. One was at the Bishop's Palace, which to me looked the same as it did before the storm, except cleaner and maybe with a couple broken windows. The other led us to the ruins of the pirate Jean Lafitte's house, called "Maison Rouge" in its time. Lafitte was asked to leave the US, and fled to the Yucatan. Now his once grand house, with lots of booty, was a few crumbling concrete slabs with a little wild garden of vines running through it. A house nearby had a shed slung carelessly over the fence. The winds of change had certainly bounced things around.

oh the pirate gets the ship and the girl tonight

breaks a bottle to christen her

basking in the exploits of her thief

she's a very good listener

And somehow that makes me think of ourselves, much older than we used to be when we haunted these same parts. I think of Jennifer as a little girl coming here to visit her grandmother. To her, the city is irrevokably changed.

To me, it looks like a stronger version of its former self, maybe with some signs of past distress still, but railing, sallying forth, pushing into a future unknown.

Kind of like us women.

and maybe that's all that we need

is to meet in the middle of impossibility

standing at opposite poles

equal partners in a mystery

we're standing at opposite poles

equal partners in a mystery