Photo taken 16 January 2009 - Meyer B&B, Comfort, Texas, USA. Nikki's feet are the ones on the left, mine are on the right.
I don't feel like blogging about Lebanon. Late last week, Nikki was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm and she's having an angiogram tomorrow, then plans for brain surgery. Nikki and I have been "besties" since 8th grade, she comments on this blog as "wheelo." We're ridiculously close and I've been in a daze for days, but now reality is sinking in and I'm freaking out.
But I'm not going to freakout, right Nikki? This is all going to be fine. I just request that everyone please think good thoughts, pray, meditate, whatever it is you do...and to include Nikki and her brain when you do. Nikki has a really great brain. It's not only got lots of smarts but is entirely driven by humour.
Here's an album of a little road trip Nikki and I made to Comfort, Texas, just a week or so before I left for Phuket to get on the sailboat. Nikki made me this great little collage book keep me from freaking out about quitting my job and flying across the world to get on a sailboat with strangers and venture across the Indian Ocean. And she planned this great retreat to Comfort, which really did comfort me.
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| Comfort, Texas (January 2009) |
And now...I want to comfort Nikki, but I don't know how. So instead, I will try to make Nikki laugh:
Nikki is really good at expressing her feelings about our friendship, like in this comment on a previous blog post. But...I'm not so good at it. However, there was once this time when I did effusively and impulsively express myself to Nikki about our friendship...oh, what did I call it then? The best day of my life? You know the day I'm talking about, right Nikki? (Laughing yet?) We were sitting outside at Starbucks on the south side corner of West Grey and Shepard (not to be confused with the Starbucks on the north side of that same corner). It was probably 2005, I was in a massive rut and we had likely been there hours talking and laughing. The sky was blue and Nikki was across from me with the old River Oaks Theater sign hanging just behind her. Suddenly I was overcome with gratitude for the happy day in the midst of a very trying couple of years. And so I blurted, uncontrollably, something about it being the best day of my life or something equivalently effusive. Well, as the words escaped my mouth I wanted to grab them and make them less...cheesy. But it was too late and Nikki instantly burst into laughter, which set us into hysterics for at least thirty minutes. We never even articulated what, exactly, we were laughing at...I think it was my and unadulterated vulnerability...and that it came out of nowhere.
Many hours of hanging out later, we were driving on the South Loop to Walmart and we saw a shooting star.
6 comments:
holy crap my feet look HUGE in that picture. i swear...i'm not an amazon y'all. no...you're not going to freak out ali...i'm going to be fine...we've got many more shooting stars in our future :)
although...looking at the comfort pics...i was reminded of our little...role playing at the painted church...and i hope God doesn't hold it against me...hee. i'm sure He knows you were the ringleader, though ;)
nikki, i'll be thinkin' of ya and i've written to the angels and they said they will look out for you too !!! you are so lucky to have ali as your best friend. she is a way cool chick and i know we are both thinking of you over here and wishing you all the best !!!
i hope one day i can meet y'all (i love that!!) in texas and we can go to this shipley's place !!! i'm a donut connoisseur so i need to sus this place out !!
big hugs n kisses
alyssa x
uhm...don't you mean Ali is lucky to have Me for a best friend? hee. just kidding. i'm very very grateful for ali. thanks for your good wishes and thoughts. you'll have to have an apple fritter and a bullseye when we go to shipleys...yum...you'll be in heaven. hog heaven :)
Hey there Nikki Wheelo.....I don't know you but do know 'of' you. Sounds like a wonderful friendship has been shared by you and Ali over so many years and will most certainly continue to be shared with Ali for many more years to come - you'll grow old together and for some reason I don't think it will be 'gracefully' !!
Sending only good 'vibes' to you across the wild blue yonder all the way to Texas - where everything is so BIG, except your feet :o)
with affection, Rosie (Alyssa's mom) Wish you guys hadn't mentioned donuts, honestly.....sheesh, now I'm craving for a krispy kreme.
I'm not much of a talker - Ali can vouch for me here - but I hope and pray that everything will turn out ok for you Wheelo. Keep fighting the good fight :)
sorry...haven't been keeping up with the blog for a bit. thank you for your kind words and good vibes, rosie :) i am sure we will be sharing many more years and definitely much more laughter. you have to get to texas one day though...you'll never crave krispy kreme once you've had a shipley's donut. and thank you as well, sheiban...you're very kind to pray for a stranger...and i appreciate it so much. i am glad that ali is meeting such wonderful people on her journey :)
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