hang on, no, that undersells it. when i was younger i went wilderness camping for three summers. it was a progressive program in which you'd be more and more on your own, eventually culminating in days-long solo hikes. you had to carry all the food and water you needed. you couldn't discard anything (this was pristine wilderness, after all). you learned to rely on yourself and make good decisions and understand that there was no one watching to make sure you were doing the right thing, and there was no calling for help. this was still in the age before cell phones.
i wish this was the point where i could say, and i made lots of lifelong friends!!, but that's not the case. in my defense, i'm not really in contact with any of my friends from that era of my life. so while i wish i'd kept up with a few of them, well, oops.
last night i dreamed i was back there, and at a very specific location, past a huge tree, one still clinging to life despite a number of mishaps. at a particular bend in the creek, when one of the other campers told me, [malachite], we need to exchange phone numbers, and another, her friend, said, yeah, [malachite], me too, and i laughed and said we did, and (as you can guess) we never did.
in the dream there are a few people hovering around the periphery of this bend, but they're indistinct. the whole thing jives with my recollection of it: the trees past the water, the tents set up there, the friends i really should've made an effort for, but didn't. and that's okay. when we're young we make decisions and make them quickly. they're not always right. important to give space to the imperfections of our younger selves. not just the doors they close, but those they open up.
mornings like this i wonder how many people wake up in the same state — awake, aware of the images slipping away, wondering about people from many years ago, whether anyone would even recognize their name, or if even that's slipped away, too. this morning i let the dogs out into the melting snow and watched them run around a bit before going to gather them in. my partner still asleep upstairs, i made myself some strong coffee in the moka pot. decided to write all this down before the dream started to fade. which it already had when i was having the dream: the colours not the vivid turquoise water and white sand beach i dreamed of back in january, but the muted ones of old, faded photographs. dead greens. whites with some dirt on them. maybe appropriate for the friendships we wished for then and both let go to seed.