Highs and Lows

 My weekend of highs and lows began early on Saturday morning as my love gently tickled my back with work weathered fingers and my ears with a sweet and spontaneous promise. A journey, he declared, is upon us. And with that, he eagerly wafted the sweet smell of black coffee beneath my nose before throwing back my down-feathered cocoon and mock-ordering me to get up(!) and get dressed(!), punctuating my groggy protest with the opening of our bedroom door and the rude Intrusion of the Hound and 7:30am dog kisses.

Today is your nerd day, he explained while pushing me into the shower, I’m taking you out.

And so the orchestration of his day – my day – began on the 91 freeway, his pre-wake-up procured trek provisions (Chex Mix for him, Laffy Taffy for me – cuz we do brefix right) and traffic sanity kits (mutual ipod favorites like Pink Floyd, Metallica, and Black Sabbath, as well as the complete fixings for my latest crotchet project – a granny square baby blanket for our friends’ currently marinating spawn) in my speakers and in my lap, little red car rolling swiftly at 80 miles per hour toward the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles.

And it was glorious. Hours of oohing and awing and feeling and learning – my eyes taking in magnificent beasts of all shapes and sizes, my brain marveling at facts and history and stories and folklore. Hawks that travel 180 mph in a dive, winged things that spend six years in flight without ever touching land or sea (how do they sleep!?), insects that hatch and spend nine years under ground only to surface, climb a tree, drop an egg deep into the soil below, and die, and Native American artifacts made with so many colors it’d take years to identify each one.

And we laughed. When we passed beneath an ominous doorway and into a dimly lit display room full of precious gems and stones and things that sparkled. And how we, in this dark room, kept mistaking the reflections in the marble wall for real people and walking right into its solid mass. Why is this so dark! he finally gasped, rubbing his now red nose, to which I pointed out, Shaun, we’re in a vault… And you’d think I’d have told him we’d entered into Narnia, the way he ran back to inspect the heavy metal door and marveled at the (now clearly) alarmed display cases. An almost thirty year old man-child.

And we teased. Every time an overzealous child bumped my purse to the ground, or nudged his or her way to the front of an exhibit, he’d give me his knowing look as if to say – yeah… just wait. If our kid’s anything like its mother…

And it was nice – thinking about the future again, finally. Because it’s been so long since we’ve allowed ourselves to get that far ahead of what’s happening now.

And we splurged. Spending $15 dollars on lunch, which consisted merely of a bottled water, a handful of French fries, and two finger sized chicken nuggets (for him), and a vanilla yogurt with granola and a strawberry-banana flavored V8 juice (for me).

And then… finally, it was time. We’d saved the best for last as just after two o’clock, he led me by the hand into the largest exhibit of all.

I don’t know how long I stood there, trying to take it all in. You see, I’d never seen them before – up close. Just under mountains and beneath my feet on desert nights. But there they were – my dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus-Rex loomed before me as I gawked at his majesty. Stegosaurus masqueraded, massively, just across the way. A herd of Triceratops gathered to my right. And in looking up, my favorite of them all, hundreds upon hundreds of bones coming together as they were so many years ago – the Apatosaurus. Its body and neck reaching from one end of this great room to the other, and me, gape mouthed beneath it. Trembling with excitement.

All at once I felt so infinitely small, yet even more infinitely whole – because, yes, some infinities really are bigger than others – touching, exploring, reading, wondering. Every minute twenty-eight years in the making. Why have I never done this before?

With new dinosaur t-shirt in hand and reluctant to leave, Shaun led me back to the car just after five – both of us hoping like hell we’d make it in time for dinner plans with my family to celebrate my sister-in-law’s birthday, both smiling silently while thinking – either way, it was worth it. Cracking jokes and serenading each other with off-key renditions to Michael Jackson songs. Hitting an all time high when we, at the same time, high five and then simultaneously finish it off with a snap, realizing that, maybe, just maybe, we’re watching a little too much of the The Todd a la Scrubs. And this is life, again, at 80 miles per hour.

 And no sweat, anyhow – because we did make it, afterall. Thanks to my brother’s uncanny need to tinker, as he and my dad were doing when we walked in the front door. Something about Apple TV and some cord or another. And then we were off again – some dive Italian Restaurant in Ontario that Becca’s grandparents used to frequent back when it was a pop up food stand.

A few pitchers of beer and oh my god – so much spaghetti later, there we sat. Full. Tired. And happy. My love almost bursting at the seams after having been dared by my brother to eat the full plate – consisting of enough spaghetti to feed an army – and succeeding.

Oh yes. My man. Pregnant with marinara covered pasta. Capping the night off around the fire pit in the back yard.

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nt-family: Arial;”>And these are the highs that get us through, aren’t they? So that when Sunday morning rolls around and you get a call from a friend that sends you to a whole new low, you have something to grasp on to. Because he’s in the hospital – Josh – whose been around since Long Beach and the music house with his bag pipes and barely there dread locks. And you didn’t know it then but you do now – that after having moved to Washington, he’d met some girl who’d brought him back into the game and only a few months ago he’d stroked out after a too-strong heroin binge and landed himself in the hospital. And then rehab. And then to work just the other day, where he’d not felt himself and so was sent home to rest. Until his brother couldn’t wake him up.

And upon that news the first thing I thought of was his mother, all those years ago, and him finding her there in bed and not being able to wake her lifeless body. And that maybe he’d done it, too.

So the whole of yesterday was spent in bed. Waiting. At first it was that he’d overdosed. But then no, because the tox-screen was clean. And then a coma. And then just sedation. And then a 30% chance because his vitals aren’t good. And then maybe an aneurism, but nobody knows for sure. And all this via Shaun’s facebook – and me hating all over again that I might be finding out about a wonderful friend’s fate via a social networking site.

And we just lay there. Still waiting. Watching Scrubs, because what else is there to do. And every hour or so when it’d get quiet, Shaun would roll into me and whisper, you thinking about Josh? And I’d nod. And we’d wait some more. Because neither of us knows how it’s happened this way. That so many people we love have fallen into something so ugly, when they themselves are nothing but beautiful.

So today it’s the beauty I’m holding on to. Beauty like Josh and his gremlin green topless car from back in 2005. And the beauty of nerd day’s full of Wish You Were Here and dinosaur bones. Beauty in the highs that’ll, somehow, get all of us through the other highs that bring us all so goddamn low.