The Big Sort: 3 Cranes in the sky
Clothing optional hot spring
Somewhere in the Inland Empire, California.
Sometime during the historic drought in 2016.
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When I met her on the first day of college, she’d just returned from a year in Peru, where she’d been farming, baking bread and singing with Hare Krishnas. Our peers were sipping booze for the first time and she’d already taken ayahuasca.
There was a mandala tapestry above her bed and a Himalayan crystal lamp on her shelf. She wore a jade spiral necklace with a black string, which she later replaced with a clay and cowrie shell shaped like a vagina. She carried her water in mason jars and cooked vegetables with coconut oil in a cast iron pan.
When she moved to a coop in town, I used to go swimming in their pool after class until one of their chicken fell in and drowned. The tapestry had been taken down by then to hang medicinal herbs to dry. Sometimes, we’d drink Two Buck Chuck and go dancing. She was like a pixie spinning and crawling on the dance floor without a slither of self-consciousness.
She was the fun friend, and around this time in particular, the tough moments one too. In the aftermath of Trump’s election, I’d barely left my room for weeks, except to go to protests in downtown LA. So sad, so mad. I had Solange's A Seat at the Table on repeat.
She showed up to my door in her blue Toyota Echo and somehow managed coax me out. I rolled down the windows as she drove us into the mountains. We walked for hours in silence and slid down sandy slopes on our butts where the trail had disappeared. I was following her blindly; I still have no idea where this was. It was past sunset when we reached our destination - a clothing-optional hot spring.
I kept mine on.
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Love you, LBS!