For Ellen

What can I possibly say about a woman who has known me since I was twelve years old and still likes me? I can call her a saint. Before we were sixteen and while we were still saving our pennies to buy our "ten speed" bicycles, we would talk about the future we would share together. I never really thought we would share so much, but by God's grace, we have shared our lives in amazing ways. I think about the movie "Beaches" and that song "Wind Beneath My Wings." Ellen was that amazing friend who seemed to only see the best in me. She had eight brothers and sisters. I was an only child. I don't know how she had the time to think about me at all.
Our lives are so intertwined, so influenced by each other...although I think I was the one doing most of the influencing. Like Lucille Ball, I had a thousand hair-brained schemes, and my sweet Ellen went along for the ride...literally...on many occasions. Have ten-speed will travel. I could wait to fly out and away and I learned from Ellen that I didn't have to do it alone.
She was timid. I was brave. But I think she was and is a thousand times stronger than me. I love her so completely. I can never repay her for her love for me. And when I realize that God loves us even more than that...well...wow!

So here's to the bike story. One more time. We tell it every holiday we share together, like her six foot plus brother John running around in diapers on the driveway. Like Carter King, the guy I SHOULD have married...who was the most handsome man I have ever seen, but kissed like an 8th grader (sorry, Carter!)Ah, but Ellen loved his horse, Liz. Ellen was always more practical than me.

The greatest, and perhaps most dangerous adventure I talked her into was riding from San Antonio to New Braunfels. In cut-offs and halter-tops. Before the days of sunscreen. With maybe one bottle of water and two dollars between us.

Let's go to Stinky's and float down the river. Stinky's an old paper mill that had been shut down. It still had remnants of the building and the dam built to use the Comal River for energy to run part of the mill. Beautiful stone walls forced the water to flow in certain directions. You had to walk across an old wooden plank about six inched wide to get to the "deck" where all of us hippie wanna be's could sun ourselves. Float down about a half a mile and you would get to Warneke, where you had to pay a whole dollar to get in the water. But if you got in at Stinky's, you didn't have to pay anything.

Our thought was "God made the river, how come man has the right to charge a dollar for us to float in it?" That question was right up there with the "Why is there the Viet Nam War? HOw many boys are going to die today?"

Times were different.

Ellen agreed to the trip and we headed out from my house without telling anyone where we were going or what we were doing. Bandanas, halters, cut-offs and sandals. I even MADE my halter-top from a Butterick pattern using about a yard of cotton fabric. We were such earth mothers!

When we hit the hit at 1604 (where 1604 intersects Interstate 35--what they have still nick-named "death road," I saw the sign that said, "San Antonio 16 New Braunfels 16" and I thought wow, 32 miles one way. That's a bit longer than I thought it would be.

We rode on the access road...thank God there was one all the way to New Braunfels! I was always in the lead, urging Ellen to press on. Only once did a car almost hit her. Back then, bikes were not common on the road and definitely not common on highways. I kept yelling, pedal harder! as I watched the man who was not paying attention almost roll into her backside.

It did provide us with the adrenalin to get us the rest of the way to San Antonio Blvd in downtown New Braunfels. And oh, what reward to coast along the streets of New Braunfels and smell the water in everything around us.

Parked our bikes next to a sycamore, locked them up, threw my sandals aside and headed for the water. I was so hot and thirsty. Walked across the little board as if it wasn't there. Jumped in the cold (about 65 degree) water.

You can guess what happened next.

My legs went completely numb. Cramped up. I don't recall pain, I recall not being able to navigate the rushing water. I began to shout to the people lying around on the banks, "Help!" "Yo, dude!" I heard back...a little too stoned or drunk, they just waved and smiled and watched me float on the way to the Golf of Mexico...which is what I began to think would happen for real if I didn't find help soon. I know Ellen wasn't far away from me, but I was too scared to wonder how she was handling our little trip. Finally some lean, tanned dude in cut-offs stepped into the water and drew me to the bank.
"Thanks, man."
We probably made the float about three times. Muddy and happy, we were free spirits, hanging with the people who knew that all this war and corporate crap was a waste of human energy. Just gotta love your brother, man. Watergate, Viet Nam, Agent Orange, SALT Talks, Martin and Bobby, Chief Joseph, air pollution, water pollution, the Projects...just hang on the river, man. Buy three tacos for a dollar and Jack-in-the box and a gallon of Spanada (sangria wine) for about a buck-fifty and the rest of that stuff didn't matter. You had the river. God's river. And maybe the Doobie Brother's Black Water playing on a transistor radio of the bank tuned to KONO 86 AM.

Are you completely bored yet? I'm not.

All was fine until about 4-5 p.m. when it finally dawns on my little brain that we actually have to RIDE our bikes another 32 miles back home. I cannot begin to describe how much I think I grew up in those few moments when I realized what I had done, what I had talked Ellen into.

Seemed like a good episode for I Love Lucy to me.

Ellen, we have got to find a way home. Our parents will KILL us when the hear what we did. At least mine will. Ellen's gift of eight brothers and sisters guaranteed a little bit of mercy for her...but me, an only...I would hear about it FOREVER.

So we find a ride home. We put our bikes in the back of a beat up Ford or Chevy truck. I'm leaning against the side and enjoying the wind in my face and Ellen is sitting across from me.

Man, Ellen, I'm sure glad you knew this guy. I don't know how we would have gotten home without him.

I knew him? Cindy, I thought YOU knew him!

Ah, the adventure continues. The tall, lanky, shirtless, long curly haired dude unloads our bikes around Loop 410 and Nacadoches. (I'm misspelling that!)

Later, dude.

And oh my, our backs probably peeled for about a month!

And we've had something to talk about for almost 40 years.

You have those stories in you.
Write them down. Poorly if you have to, but write them down.

We are a people of the story. Our bodies will whither away to nothing. Our minds will forget. In old age, we might forget that we loved once and we loved well. We hurt once. We thought the world would end when our first love walked away.

Last night, at Heartpaths, we discussed rituals. Half of us in the room have lived through a divorce. We discussed our rituals that got us through the most painful times of our lives. And we laughed. Loudly. Because we lived through it.

Remembering that we lived through the darkness, that we persevered. That we still breathe.

And that ties into the Mass. The Liturgy. The Eucharistic Prayer. The Easter Vigil.

We remember who we are. We remember we survived. We remember the love.

When I thought about killing myself after the divorce, because I couldn't handle...or didn't want to handle the pain anymore, I thought of Ellen and that crazy bicycle adventure, when we could have cashed it in about a thousand times that day, but we didn't. We lived.
And I think about the love we have shared as friends for so long. And how that love never went away.
Like God's love. Even when we didn't think He was there, He was there.

And we take another step. And like this very moment, as I look out the window at Panera, the clouds burn away and the sun shines through. We need the rain as much as we need the sun.

The secret of life is to live it. Write it down. Someday someone will want to know who you were...

Love, Cindy