(no subject)
Jun. 7th, 2006 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogAs I waited for my download of the trialware version of Veritas Backup Exec (that a friend just gave me a key generator for), I queued up some Queen on my computer. After going through Killer Queen, I put on You're My Best Friend. As it played, I looked across my desk at the pretty girl across the room and I was suddenly reminded of one of our many trips back to Michigan from Wisconsin. We were driving along the long, straight stretch of I-94 going east from the Indiana border, the sun ahead glistening off the sparkling white concrete and flashing in occasional twinkling brilliance from my mate's car a hundred yards in front of me. My radio was tuned in to some nameless station playing classic rock, but I hadn't been paying it much attention; I was too distracted by the peculiar beauty of the open road as it rushed by.
Then, I found myself turning up the radio; something I knew had come on. It was Queen's You're My Best Friend. Now, with some frequency, a song would come on the radio while both of us were listening in the car on some road trip or other, and I would say to Moira "This is one of those songs that make me think of you." Things like the Cranberries' Dreams, or Depeche Mode's Somebody. One of the ones, though, that most clearly brought with it that sense of love and companionship that always accompanied the all too brief periods of my life that she could be with me, was Queen's You're My Best Friend. So, when I heard the opening notes pulsing out of my speakers, I had to dig up my cell phone and give her a call so she could find the station I was listening to and hear it too.
She answered her phone and, before I could even say anything, she asked "Are you listening to Queen right now?"
I don't know quite how to describe that moment, except to say that it was one of those rare instants when everything clicks.
I know those moments pretty well. Though they aren't frequent by any means, they are astoundingly memorable when they occurr. That's why I remember that day, that place, two-hundred miles out of Detroit, and that moment, so very well. It's also why I remember last night with the clarity that I do.
We'd eaten dinner with my family and it was pretty late when we got back. I had gone upstairs to continue the backup project I've been working on since scrounging a Travan 10GB/20GB tape drive from work, when Andrea came into the room. "Come with me?" she asked.
I followed her down to the front porch. The lights were off in the house and she bade me sit next to her in the dark, our backs against the ridged vinyl siding of the outer wall of our living room. In the stillness, we listened to the whisper of the rain outside and the occasional louder sibilance of cars driving along rain-damp asphalt, tires leaving short-lived fishtails in the air that sparkled like distant stars in the light of the street lamps.
After a time, we began to talk. I talked about the way the tree in front of our house made the world directly out the window into a black sheet on which the occasional bits of indigo sky that somehow made it through the tiny tunnels between the leaves were like splatters of paint against an empty black canvas. She talked about a friend she once knew who had a magical space not entirely unlike our porch: a screened in room on the second floor of her house where she slept in the summer, surrounded by the magic of softly glowing candles and carried to sleep by the whispering winds. We talked, we listened, and we leaned in close to each other and kissed. For a rare moment, not as sudden or surprising as the one we shared that day in Michigan, but equally beautiful for it's peace and stillness as that revelation on the road was beautiful for it's vigor and energy, the world clicked.
And, moments like those in mind, I can get through the many, many times when it doesn't.
Good night my friends; sleep well.
Then, I found myself turning up the radio; something I knew had come on. It was Queen's You're My Best Friend. Now, with some frequency, a song would come on the radio while both of us were listening in the car on some road trip or other, and I would say to Moira "This is one of those songs that make me think of you." Things like the Cranberries' Dreams, or Depeche Mode's Somebody. One of the ones, though, that most clearly brought with it that sense of love and companionship that always accompanied the all too brief periods of my life that she could be with me, was Queen's You're My Best Friend. So, when I heard the opening notes pulsing out of my speakers, I had to dig up my cell phone and give her a call so she could find the station I was listening to and hear it too.
She answered her phone and, before I could even say anything, she asked "Are you listening to Queen right now?"
I don't know quite how to describe that moment, except to say that it was one of those rare instants when everything clicks.
I know those moments pretty well. Though they aren't frequent by any means, they are astoundingly memorable when they occurr. That's why I remember that day, that place, two-hundred miles out of Detroit, and that moment, so very well. It's also why I remember last night with the clarity that I do.
We'd eaten dinner with my family and it was pretty late when we got back. I had gone upstairs to continue the backup project I've been working on since scrounging a Travan 10GB/20GB tape drive from work, when Andrea came into the room. "Come with me?" she asked.
I followed her down to the front porch. The lights were off in the house and she bade me sit next to her in the dark, our backs against the ridged vinyl siding of the outer wall of our living room. In the stillness, we listened to the whisper of the rain outside and the occasional louder sibilance of cars driving along rain-damp asphalt, tires leaving short-lived fishtails in the air that sparkled like distant stars in the light of the street lamps.
After a time, we began to talk. I talked about the way the tree in front of our house made the world directly out the window into a black sheet on which the occasional bits of indigo sky that somehow made it through the tiny tunnels between the leaves were like splatters of paint against an empty black canvas. She talked about a friend she once knew who had a magical space not entirely unlike our porch: a screened in room on the second floor of her house where she slept in the summer, surrounded by the magic of softly glowing candles and carried to sleep by the whispering winds. We talked, we listened, and we leaned in close to each other and kissed. For a rare moment, not as sudden or surprising as the one we shared that day in Michigan, but equally beautiful for it's peace and stillness as that revelation on the road was beautiful for it's vigor and energy, the world clicked.
And, moments like those in mind, I can get through the many, many times when it doesn't.
Good night my friends; sleep well.
