Ode to Friendship

My good friend and I rode on our bicycles along the seawall after a seeing a musician friend play a live show at one of the clubs in town. We reminisced everything from our friendship to all the silly individual adventures we got up to in various parts of the city. We stopped, played and sang some tunes on the public pianos scattered en route to a semi-private beach that I’ve designated as my favourite spot in town. It is a place where I go to escape the city and reflect.

My friend is moving away to a different country in a week, and even though his heart remains on the West Coast, everything we do together might be the last time we ever do any of the things together. Even though I am sure our friendship will transcend time and distance, I am sad that he will not be able to accompany me to any dance parties or indulge me in a game of “chatting up strangers”. Part of me feels like he’s not really leaving. We’ve talked and bonded so much over our work, our personalities, and our love lives in the past couple of years that we’ve managed to cement a part of us in each other (does that make sense?).

I talked him through the late-night/ early-morning rendezvous that had occurred at my favourite spot just weeks earlier, my eyes and voices full of hope and intrigue. He listened intently and smiled from his heart, wishing me all the best for a new exciting adventure. We sat on the rocks looking out towards the ocean and listened to the waves lap the beach. The silence encapsulated our friendship. Between us there are no words unsaid nor truths buried; just two souls connecting and running towards our next destination separately and together, knowing that our paths will cross again soon someday.

Vancouver is an amazing city. Early-morning rendezvous at a semi-private beach, a past-bedtime bike ride from one end of the town to the other with a best friend, and the stunning, stunning (so gorgeous that I had to use stunning twice to describe it properly) views of the mountain and the ocean combined are reason enough to believe that magic is nothing short of reality. I am so happy to be able to call this home, and I am so lucky to have met the wonderful people who are the bestest of friends.

shooting stars

Wish you were here – that was the thought that had started it all. That night when the five of us huddled close together for warmth on a 3’wide dock under a blanket of magical starscapes and looked for shooting stars on the last night of our camping trip, you were the one I was thinking about; the one I wanted to spend more time with; the one I couldn’t get out of my head.

I’ve never wished upon a shooting star. They go by too fast for me to even start a thought, let alone finish one. My mind was filled with thoughts of you as I listened to the conversation and the quiet chirping of the birds in the grass just a few feet away from us. Serenity overwhelmed the lake and my senses. For once I have no work, no unfinished business or errands I should be running during my free time, or people to be responsible for and things to take care of. Time, it seemed like, was on my side for the first time in my life. I was all by myself, and I was whole. I was alone but I wasn’t lonely. Friends surrounded me and reminded me how lucky I am to be living a life I can call mine.

I kept replaying the hours-long exchange we had nights before, not exactly sure what to make of it. My feelings for you took me by surprise and it was driving me crazy – you were driving me crazy.

The starry sky was nothing short of ethereal, and so was the thought that we’d be together in the not-so-distant future. I hope the shooting stars heard my wishes.