Jeska

Have you ever realized that you didn't know you missed someone until they walked through your door?

That's how I felt about seeing my friend, Jessica Stowell, this weekend. Actually, seeing her made me miss all the friends I left behind in Washington when I got married in 2004.

I've been blessed through the years with many wonderful friends. In fact, I told my husband this evening that many of my friendships among the deepest joys of my life. Forgive me as I indulge a walk down memory lane to a great time I had six years ago. Literally, to the day, exactly, six years ago.

In 2002, I left my home state (Home Means Nevada) for Washington. Imagine my shock upon moving to the "Evergreen State" to find the massive Columbia River lined with rock and shrubs. Nary a natural born tree anywhere nearby. Orchards, grape vines, hops, yes. Trees started growing in the Cascade foothills somewhere west of the Yakima Valley and before the great volcano peaks of Mts. Rainier, Adams and Helens.

I loved it there. I met some amazing people there. Moving there helped me heal some personal wounds and work on improving myself in so many ways. I worked for a newspaper in a bureau office. Can you imagine! A bureau and I LOVED it. I loved being able to wander in to the main office when necessary and pretend phone trouble when I was too busy to deal with my hoovering boss. ("Shoot Craig, I've got a, a, uh, an interview in two minutes. I'll call you later...") I taught primary and came to love every six-year-old child in my huge ward. I was part of the local musical theater company. I prepared for and ran a marathon there under the cheering and guidance of wonderful, caring friends -- the gang at work Coach Frank Purdy, Mark Morey, Ross Courtney, Phil Ferilitto, the Cook, Yoakum, Potter & Stoddard families who took me in as one of their own. And, of course, by virtue of being the two single girls in the family ward, Jessica Hileman.

We were very different. Jess: shy. Amanda: outgoing. Jess: organized. Amanda: uh, not. Jess: Methodical. Amanda: uh, not. Jess: cautious. Amanda: carefree. Jess: white socks. Amanda: anything with color. But we got along and I coerced her into becoming a hiker. We learned that just because something has the name "Huckleberry or Blueberry" in its destination title, that didn't exactly mean you could find such a berry there. We learned to hate the Little Black and White mosquito. We cursed the people who drove to the top of the mountain it took us four hours to hike up. Apparently, although I do not remember this, I gave her a pair of argyle socks of which she now has 50 pairs. I now wear almost only white. Ironic, yes, but it's just easier.

And one day when I casually said, "I think I want to go to Switzerland. Or Mexico", she actually looked up ticket costs. And by jove, we ended up in Mexico six years ago yesterday. I'd traveled she had not. She was an over prepared nervous wreck who packed (and I mean PLANNED for any event) the week before we left. I was not at all stressed until I had to pack the night before we left. We flew to Cancun, stayed the night at a hostel and caught a bus for Merida, the inland capital of the Yucatan. Can I just say we had the most amazing time? From the crazy hostel, to rip-off hammock salesmen to swimming in underground cenotes (sorry, those pictures didn't really turn out, but that was CRAZY!) to climbing ancient Mayan temples, to lounging on the beach on a tiny island it was just a trip to remember. Recently, Jessica asked if I could email her a picture of her bag of wonders. This trip was one of the last captured on my old film camera so, naturally, I had to go grab the album to scan the picture in. I marveled at my skinny post-marathon, carefree self. What the heck was that girl doing just wandering around Mexico, standing at the edge of sacrificial centoes, inhaling pollo yucateca and banana liquados as if she had nothing to worry about? Didn't she know family life was looming and this time would end?

She had no freaking idea. Neither did Jessica, who succumbed to the lure of marriage a year later. So, I scanned in her picture, then scanned in a few more. And now for your viewing pleasure, and because it pleases my memory, I present a glimpse of our tour of Mayan ruins and a Caribbean beach, 2004:

The hammock salesman in Merida (fun Spanish-style city) was a former migrant worker turned hammock hawker. Total scam artist. We recognized it and bought hammocks from him anyway. We ignored his attempts to sell us copies of the "Hammocksutra." The rest of the photos were taken at Uxmal, sort of like the famous Chichen Itza, but older, more remote, fewer tourists. I love listening to Mayan words. It's a whispery language "Uxmal" looks harsh but in Mayan, "x" sounds like a soft "sh" to think "ooshmall." Just sounds nice. And indeed, it was wonderful. We went to church in Merida and the people convinced us to take a trip to this old hacienda to swim in the cenotes. A side note: There are no rivers in the Yucatan. All the water runs underground from hole to hole: cenotes. Some are open like the massive sacrificial one at Chichen Itza or like the ones outside Merida, underground caverns accessible by, uh, we'll call them ladders through holes in the cavern ceilings. Or, you could just jump in or climb down the tree roots that dropped 30 feet looking for water. It was so stinking fun: Take a mini bus (read, minivan crammed with people) to this little town. Pay a boy a dollar to pedal you in a rickshaw thing to the hacienda. Pay a man with a rail cart and a skinny horse to haul you to the cenotes. Climb down, swim. Jess is afraid of water, and dark small spaces. I did good to get her down the ladders. Even for me, though, swimming in that dark water was pretty freaky. Then, return. Pray you have your own toilet paper, because no one in town did. Except Jessica the Prepared. :)




You can't visit the Yucatan without visiting the well-preserved Chichen Itza. Here, Jess and I sit on top the Temple of the Sun (which took forever to climb up), take the classic, "Oooh, look there's air below our feet!" shot, goof off and pose for what I call "Tall girl in a little door" or "The Mayans wouldn't have known what to do with me." It would be unfair of me to mention the bus ride from Merida back to Validolid: Jessica the Prepared felt queasy. Naturally, she had packed Pepto Bismol, a substance to which she had an unknown allergy. Mexican buses have TVs for which there is no option but to watch the show. Jessica got sick and vomited for two hours straight. And we got to watch the horrid, oh so horrid "Hypercube" the whole way. And then her bag leaked. Poor thing. And my most miserable two hours ever prior to 2007's JFK airport incident (seven hours stuck on a runway with a 2-year-old and a 5-month-old. I will never fly through JFK again.)

We were not the Cancun party types, so four two days to relax before heading home we went to Isla Mujeres, an island a few miles off shore from Cancun five miles long by oh, one mile wide. A spit of sand encircled by the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean. Oh. My. I fell in love with beach life there. We biked around the island. Jessica is, as above stated, afraid of water, so I snorkeled alone (I've been obsessed with snorkeling in Belize ever since...some day...) There was this ridiculous zoo in the middle of the island. The picture above of Jessica with the spider monkey was taken moments before the creature wrapped its tail around her legs, grabbed at her clothes and tried to pull her into the cage. I stood there stupefied thinking, "Monkey attack? Nope, nothing in my life tool box has ever prepared me to deal with this..." Fortunately, she got away.

And six years later, she and her husband Aaron, got on a plane again. To visit her brother in NYC. To go to Washington DC for a a couple days. And to come see me on a very, very fast trip.

I was honored to see them. Sad to see them go so quickly. And now I want more people to come visit. With three kids, its hard to get out much. But I find that real contact, hugging, reconnecting with words, seeing the people of your life fill in your new space, that's a salve the soul that I didn't know I needed.

So, here we were today -- heavier, travely weary, wind blown -- at the Smith Farm in Palmyra, NY where our church was started: