Enkindled Memories of a Friend

 Traveling brought with it its own sense of memories and wanderlust. While on the road with my brother, especially as we were starting out and still in California, I recalled the time I was with my oldest brother 10 years ago in June. We were also driving together, but not nearly as far, just to LA area. He was driving me to an Opus Dei Center where I would be staying for a week for a program for high school and college catholic women called 'Lights, Camera, Action'. And he was making the trip to LA himself for potential teaching jobs. I remember on the way, he was practicing interview questions and was having me ask some so he could practice articulating his answers. It was a nice 6 hour drive or so together, and one that I will always remember. I had just graduated high school and wasn't even planning on attending this program. I was somewhat familiar with it since some of my sisters also attended. It was a last minute decision and plan for me, but glad and grateful I decided to. 

With seeing different states, scenery the thought of old memories and friends began to emerge. I was somehow all of a sudden reliving former emails, phone conversations with an old friend. Some of it brought on nostalgia from the days of high school and early college when we were closer, and were frequently in contact. I recall the summer after high school nearly talking on the phone with her everyday. We always had something to talk about and catch up on or laugh about. 

While I was in the 'Lights, Camera, Action' program we were in touch a lot, texting regularly and talking on the phone a few times. She was taking her first college summer course and I was experiencing the height of the scenic views of Hollywood, and learning about the film industry with guests speakers, tours to Sony and Warner Brothers and celebrating my 19th birthday. I remember she was eager to know what I was learning and experiencing since she was interested in film and stories and thought of it as a possible major, aiming and desiring for UCLA.

I looked back at old emails and conversations we had. I realized how much we could talk about, various topics and ones of common interest that we hadn't explored while in high school, most probably because I wasn't that revealing of my personal interests and just a private person. I thought of her because I was traveling. She did the Peace Corps and started a blog, writing down some of her adventures and experiences, intense and beautiful with host families, long and tiring work days with English lessons and teaching, adjustments, and the Spanish language. 

Though I've never done the Peace Corps and committed to a long term work experience abroad, I can relate in my own way with language. I've been to a Spanish speaking country- El Salvador, and while she was doing the Peace Corps, I was in the same continent for 2 weeks in Rio de Janerio, Brazil for studying abroad program and Portuguese is only spoken there. And I know how it feels to 'fall in love' with a language or culture even if from a far, like my pursuit of Arabic, and now French. 

I'm not sure how or why I thought of this old friend, but I'm assuming the adventure, thrill, unpredictably of travel made it so. It was refreshing, breathtaking, exhausting and exciting to be on the road and see new places and spaces, states I have never seen before nor knew what they looked like. And in some ways to experience a new culture, at least in passing and from a distance like the country western and slow pace ness that you only feel when you leave a place you're familiar with. 

These flashbacks bring with it a certain nostalgia, but also gratitude for those times and memories, seasons and conversations that brought with it its own spice of interest, variety, ambition and memories. Sometimes our mind does that, remembering a person or a time as a reminder. It reminds me of who I am and who I was, though the two aren't very different. Perhaps its God who reminds me and leads these memories for another inspiration and purpose.