6/20- The Home Of Loreli

Saturday morning brought about the shuffle of yet another move, though this one was to be separate from the others. Todd would be returning to Hillsdale again, but I'd be staying back this round exploring the pasts of other friends instead. I had finally contacted Loreli's gramma on the phone Friday afternoon and arranged a solid time to meet up which would be 11am that Saturday morning.

Todd and I spent a bit of that morning divying up the contents of a package he'd gotten from his friend Steve that we'd had breakfast with a few weeks earlier. I was now sporting a collapsible fishing pole with tackle, and had about 6 luxury camp meals in addition to the rest of the food we'd been hauling. I was a bit overloaded, but it was no matter to me, I'd be in new guest bedrooms for the next few days with no need to walk my pack anywhere.

This visit was a curious one for me. I know I've talked some about my friendship with Loreli in past posts, but I don't know that I've really described the unusual nature it has compared with just about everyone of my other friends. Its in my nature to really find out who someone is when I'm friends with someone. That sounds like a stupid statement, but I really like to hear about how someone grew up, where they're from, essentially what their background was like coming to the point of when they met me. Sometimes I like comparing ages of what they were doing while I was doing something else, other times I just like picturing their life on a whole, it helps me understand those who I get close to.

With Loreli, however, this wasn't the case. Perhaps because we met by strange version of dating when she was brand new to motherhood; which was quite brief. Mostly I played with little Izzy giving Loreli a chance to breathe, and when we talked it was mostly about our oddly unique ways in which we each conduct our lives. More succinctly put, I'd say that our conversations are almost always about either something we're embroiled with at the moment or something we're looking forward to, and neither of us really spent any time talking about our pasts. On top of that, most of our relationship has been not only just as friends, but as email buddies as I flitted around from here to there over the past five years.

What I did know, however, was that she had come from an incredibly rough background as a child and to be allowed a view into it first hand was, what I took to be, an extreme honor as a friend. Like a fool, though, I had begun approaching this with an extreme lack of sensitivity with my flake out on Thursday, and felt I had some making up to do, though I don't know that I did it or not. Either way, I did arrive promptly on her gramma's doorstep just after 11 as arranged. She welcomed me in warmly, gathered Cyndal and Steven (Loreli's youngest siblings) into the living room, and seemed to have not been bothered one bit that I was two days late despite my incessant apologies. We all talked over coffee for a little while before the house was to resume to its normal order for the day with the simple addition of a guest. Cyndal was off to run errands for the day and gramma had a guest of her own over while Steven was designated my tour guide for the day.

Steven struck me as a really good kid who was trying to figure out his spot in the world, but really just wanted to live in the woods off on his own. In fact, he reminded me quite a bit of myself that just came from a different background was struggling to get his traction. With plans to follow his older brother, Boon, into the military I was curious to follow his train of thought on it. I have often toyed with the notion of military life as well, falling into the categories of doing it for the adventuresome life and duty. While living in Hawaii it was a brief idea since its swarmed with every uniform out there. After September 11th, having been in Brooklyn for it as well as having just quit my profession as well with a great need for direction then I debated it. Every time, however, I couldn't reconcile the dismissal of control over my own life for the duty it was said to be fulfilling. The adventure end of it, well that I fulfilled on my own terms either by entering into the film world in NYC or walking across the country. I know I'll get flack for saying this, but the idea of determining what my duty was to anything; myself, my family, my country, or the world as a whole, seemed like something for me to spend serious thought on in my own council rather than turn it over to an outside entity.

Sorry about that little rant, but it was for these reasons I was curious to see where Steven's thinking was coming from. We spent the afternoon climbing the silo on their farm and running around in the patch of woods at the back of their fields. Most of the time was spent climbing various trees rather than talking, but from what I did glean off my conversations with him the more I saw us in the same position in the light of a soldiers life vs. a wanderer's life and am excited to see where soldiering takes him.

We also share a great love of history, particularly military history, and particular to that WWII and Roman era. I discovered this in depth once we got in the car and took a road trip with his friend Stacey to Detroit for a Tigers game. Stacey has a game that she calls "her version of 20 questions" which entails asking 20 questions about the person answering as a way of getting to know someone quickly. They are random and in depth at times or light fluff at others, but the game did its job well.

Steven treated me to the game and had nice afternoon watching the Tigers cream the Brewers. Before we left I promised gramma that I would hoot and holler loudly for the Tigers, as she's an avid fan, so I did my best. Toward the end of the game, when the outcome was clear, we took a stroll around the park and Steven took a crack at pitching and batting in the cages before we headed back home.

Back in the Toledo area we met up with Cyndal for dinner at a little Mexican place. This kicked off a night of hanging out first at Stacey's briefly for s'more's around a backyard fire, then migrated to the clubhouse Cyndal and friend put together in high school out of the old barn behind her gramma's house. Steven and Stacey retired around midnight or so and Cyndal and I stayed up till about 3am talking about how the lot of them grew up. It was the most insight I'd gotten into Loreli's past in three hours than I'd heard in five years of knowing her. Needless to say it was a really great night and just a great time getting to know this side of an old, close friend and her family.