Synchronicity, baby

[constance]

I remember reading Death: The Time of Your Life -- at least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was -- a few years back. There’s a short aside in it, where Hazel recounts one of her life’s major disappointments: discovering that one of her favorite days, a pretty ordinary day that just made her perfectly happy, was something that Foxglove, who shared it with her, didn’t even remember. The knowledge that Foxglove didn’t value that day as Hazel did undermined it for Hazel; and that’s happened to me as well, I’ve loved something that I wanted to share, and the right people didn’t share the love at all. It really is one of life’s greatest small disappointments. What’s the opposite of synchronicity? Disharmony? It’s that, it’s one of those disharmonies that throws you off-balance.

But it’s serendipitously wonderful when it happens the other way round.

I got an unexpected postcard from my friend B the other day. He briefly mentions a day trip some of us took when we were all living in New Orleans together. We realized that for all the time we’d spent in South Louisiana -- some of us a lifetime -- we’d never seen the mouth of the Mississippi, and since we lived just a couple of hours away, it seemed almost criminal that we’d never driven it down. And so we packed into my car and drove south along the Mississippi, slipping into and out of swamps so close the water almost kissed the edge of the road, where the trees disappeared and it was all flatland and delta and everything was built up right to the road because that was the only place where the land was dry.

Actually, we never made it all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. It turns out that whatever branch of the river we were following (the one that terminates in Venice, if you’re interested) was controlled at its mouth by oil companies, and you couldn’t get within ten miles of the Gulf without trespassing on private roads and properties. So we looked around Venice, turned around, found a restaurant (Alice’s Restaurant, no less) and ate our lunch off school-lunch divided plastic trays, and then headed back home through a driving summer storm that had me clutching the steering wheel in a deathgrip as we cleared the bridge north into New Orleans while B. declaimed Edith Sitwell’s “Still Falls the Rain” in ringing tones from the back seat.

I can’t explain, exactly, why this is one of my all-time top-five best days. A mixture, maybe, of the impulsiveness of it, the sense of adventure, the sense that we were off the map for a day, the crazy poetry-readings. More likely it was the knowledge that if you can find a carload of friends who all happen to think a day trip down into Darkest Louisiana is excellent value no matter whether or not you manage to wade into the Gulf of Mexico, then you are lucky.

We never really mentioned that day again after we lived it, but I always did remember it very fondly indeed, and then B. wrote about it all and how surprisingly terrific it had been and how glad he was that we’re still friends ten years later, and I felt extremely lucky to have him to sharing that memory with me. I’ll love that day that much more, from now on.

Comments

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I love this story! Everyone should have a memory like this, and if someone who was there can pop up and share it with you, so much the better. "Darkest Louisiana"- what a great sounding phrase.

I've lost touch with the friends with whom I embarked upon my epic impulsive adventure, but now I'm sitting here remembering it fondly anyway. :)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, now you have to tell me about your epic adventure! :O You can't mention something like that without elaborating, you know.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, you sweet thing, you. You know I was just dying to be asked.

There were these two guys I knew in college; they'd been best friends with each other since grade school, and were both friends with me even though I'd dated 'em both. :D They were both real oddballs and each about 6'5", so hanging out with them always gave me a stiff neck. One day they just showed up at my house and demanded that I accompany them on a camping trip to Big Sur. They mentioned casually that they were a little low on food supplies, so they fidgeted frantically while I mustered some grub and then they hurried me out the door. I had no spare clothes, no bedding, and no toiletries, but they assured me they'd provide. And even though they really didn't provide (accomodations were a moldy dome tent and some blankets of dubious cleanliness, and all the food I grabbed- steak and grapes- was all the food there was, plus they snored like whoa) it was the best camping trip ever. We swam, hiked, took lots of pictures, and the real live Ben & Jerry gave us free ice cream when we came across where their big, cow-painted giant van had broken down on Hwy 1. I still have the pictures of that trip, including the highly flattering one that shows how many grapes I could fit into my mouth (7) at one time. What a blast!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

That does sound like a great trip. Somehow when you're happy, things like inadequate food and shelter don't seem to matter so much, do they? And anyway, there are worse things than steak and grapes to eat, after all! :D Also I like picturing wee you hanging around with a couple of gawky giants.

When we meet at long last, I am going to force you to share those photos with me. Be warned!

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Yay day trips! Sometimes travel near home is the most adventurous of all.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. Especially if it's something like this -- the mouth of a world-famous river, I mean. The scene of so many stories and songs and things like that!

You live in a city full of those things. How much of it haven't you seen?

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I am a pretty diligent explorer, really. Several years ago, a friend and I walked the entire perimeter of Manhattan Island. For two summers, we met every Wednesday after work and walked a couple miles, then wandered into whatever neighborhood we were in and had dinner. I found some great restaurants that way, among other things. It was really fun.

I'm not hugely familiar with the outer boroughs, though I learned a lot about Queens when I was with Emerson. In the Bronx I have visited the zoo, the botanic gardens, and recently City Island. In Brooklyn I know the museum, Prospect Park, Coney Island, and Brighton Beach. I have actually gotten off the ferry and walked around Staten Island for an afternoon, but I don't know how much that counts.

I think I am generally an explorer by nature, but I may be more aware of exploring New York because I came here from somewhere else. I grew up near San Francisco and mostly lived in that area until I was 32, but I've never been to Alcatraz Island. Granted, it was not open to the public during my childhood (it was still in use as a prison until I was 4), but still.

What are the sights you would want to see in New York?

(Oh yeah, I did think of one. I have never spent New Year's Eve in Times Square. I don't think you could pay me enough to consider it. But I go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade almost every year.)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I used to explore NO like that -- disappear for a day and go off to find something new, and usually find one or two other things that I wasn't looking for but which were great anyway -- but I seem to have got out of the habit of solitary exploring. I need to try to get back into it, because reading your post is making me remember what I loved so much about doing those things, and I noted just this morning, on my fourth anniversary here, that although I know some parts of Macon very well, there are many parts I've never even seen.

:::

I've been to New York exactly once, and spent the entire week exploring museums and walking the streets randomly and doing none of the most popular tourist things. I mean: saw the Cloisters and the Tenement Museum and the Frick Collection and shopped and found some wonderful things in little boutique shops. I walked past Edna St. Vincent Millay's teeny house and saw two films at the Angelika and a modern art preview at Christie's. But I never saw the Empire State Building or rode the Staten Island ferry or went to Barney's or Bloomingdale's.

I wouldn't have traded that trip for anything, but I suppose when I go back -- and I will go back, someday soon -- I'd like to mix a couple of those traditional things in as well.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Wow, you picked most of my favorite off-beat museums. I don't know where Millay's house is, but I always show people the house on McDougal Street where Louisa May Alcott lived during her New York years.

I hope you come back soon -- I would love to show you around!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I saw the Met and MoMA also, but they were so huge that I felt sensorily overwhelmed by them, so that as fab as they were, I really preferred the smaller, quirkier ones.

I didn't see the LMA house! You'll definitely have to show me next time I come visit, that and some of your favorite discoveries. As for Millay's, it's in the Village on Bedford Street. Here's (http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GV/GV043NarrowestHouse.htm) a little info on it. It's a private home, so not much to see, but it's fun to walk past and marvel at its teeniness.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks for that link. What an interesting history. I never guessed that William Steig was Margaret Mead's BIL, either.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Neither did I know! That site was pretty interesting in general, too -- I just linked to it for the info on the Bedford Street house, but then I ended up poking around it for a while, reading up on other things.

[badgermoonhare.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing the memory! I loved the story. I remember standing up to my waist in water, being not very old at all, and realizing I could probably keep walking up the small stream that ran through our village and eventually I would end up going past my friends house (probably less than 1km away). I did and I felt like one of the greatest explorerers of all time - everything looked very different seen from novel angles (and slightly from below) and every step was made very carefully, so my barefeet wouldn't end up on eels or leeches (which somehow seemed much more realistic dangers than nails or broken bottles).

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a wonderful story too! I have a stream in my childhood as well -- or at least, we thought it was a stream then, but it was actually a drainage canal, and who knows what awful bacterial infections we missed while we were splashing around in it looking for treasure. Somehow those things don't really figure in, when you're a kid. (Though I'm very glad I never thought of leeches, because they would have!)