08/12/2012

Another week down. I am feeling better and I am sleeping again.

Weird as this sounds, I think packing my blanket up had something to do with getting no sleep. In my rush to pack everything up, I had pulled the blanket I had on my bed off and packed it up with some stuff from a closet – its summer, so who needs it, I will just cover up with the top sheet for the next two weeks. So thought I, anyway. A couple of nights ago I just got tired of being a little chilly or a little uncomfortable so in the middle of the night in the dark there was I, tearing a box open with my fingers, then bleary-eyed with the first steak knife I found. Put the blanket back on the bed and – a normal nights sleep. How could I have known a little thing like that would make such a huge difference?

–

I am now walking through my series of “lasts” in the twin cities.

Yesterday I played tennis with Heidi, and we played at the place where we always play. Its a little neighborhood court with a practice wall at one player’s back and a big house at the other player’s back – a fantastic echo sound is the result. It sounds like you’re playing at Wimbledon or something.

We smacked the ball around and laughed for an hour or two like always. Then as we were leaving I stopped and turned around, pulling out my phone to take a picture. This is probably the last time I will ever play here, I said with a note of sadness.

When we dated, she taught me a lot. We’d walk everywhere, and do simple things like making food or – well, walking can be its own purpose, cant it?

The winter is long and harsh in Minnesota, and the little while we were seeing each other was characterized by those walks being cold – you were wearing your down coat and your stocking caps. People here don’t let winter spoil their fun. We’d walk through a neighborhood full of outlandish 70s houses or through the university at night, or the state fair’s fairground, boarded up and abandoned except for the icy wind, hunkered for winter.

But later as the temps began to slowly climb, icy bike rides were possible, walking at night as well. As the air outside was warming, we became closer but the laughter all nurtured a vine of friendship and not a rosebush. We both were feeling that – the feeling of having gained a great friend, but still not quite what you’d hoped.

But she is a great friend. I will truly miss her crazy sense of humor and her very kind personality,

As the winter ended and the snow seemingly had disappeared we were walking someplace one night, it was cold and dark. There between the sidewalk and the street was a small pile of snow, not larger than a basketball. Everyone had been rejoicing that this long winter was finally gone and the snow had gone with it, but here was this.

Me: “Wow. The last snow in Minnesota.”

(pause)

Her: “Want to kick it?”

We both laughingly kicked and stamped all over this pile, scattering the dirty snow across the sidewalk and into the street. No flake was left on another. Winter was banished.