Los Angeles, CA
I don't know what VALA means to this Mercedes,
but I took this as a sign that I need to remember
to reconnect with old friends whom I think of often, call sometimes,
and miss all the time - almost as much as the barefoot girls,
I miss the memories we made in the back yard, with the sprinklers
running and bikini tops preening from innocent skin...driving around town
to get a big gulp when the sprinklers stopped being enough
to cool down...when a run across town was all it took to cry on the shoulder
of someone who understood what it meant to not be enough - and
if she didn't, she still listened patiently, with wild, scared eyes. That night
when another moved and we went back to her old house to clean out
the cupboards and run up and down the stairs, testing
how many times we could listen to that Pearl Jam song
in between houses. 14, if I remember correctly. Eddie Vedder painted
the soundtrack to that last summer, when we tested our parents
and ourselves - out 5 nights in a row, 2 sips of beer
turned into pools of tears, and then we took that final hug
before we all went off and became the littlest versions
of our adults selves. Started writing our memoirs
as we packed our bags, made promises that at some point became
just too hard to keep for some. And for others, we write, and we do call,
and sometimes the phone rings and rings, but eventually you hear a voice
on the other line. A baby crying in the background, Eddie Vedder or new lyrics
on the page of another. We read to weave ourselves into each others' days,
we write to give a hug from one to Alabama, to Virgina.
VALA: I don't know what you mean to a Hollywood Mercedes,
but I know what you mean to me.
