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It’s the Everywheres I long for. These are the places you need a companion for. Monterrey for the day; Napa for lunch; a ferry ride to Sausalito to walk the shops, have an ice cream.
“Just ask one of your friends,” a friend, one of the friends really, will say.
“Oh. Okay. Will you? Want to drive to Santa Cruz? I haven’t been there in years and years.”
“Santa Cruz? When? Isn’t there a lot of traffic? I don’t think so.”
Or: “Hmmn. Maybe. I have the dogs. How long would it take?”
So: gone are those days of spontaneity. At their best they were so much fun, so spur-of-the-moment. “Let’s stop at that Marie Callender’s and take a lemon meringue pie with us!”
“Good idea. I’ll pack some plates and stuff.”
or
“It’s a great day for Point Reyes, isn’t it?’
“Oh it is. I’ll make some sandwiches.”
Or
“Feel like driving to the Petaluma Outlets? I want to check out their boots.”
“It’s a nice day—”
“They all are—”
“Yes! Aren’t we glad we came? Sure.”
“You can do Brooks Brothers.”
“Right. Let’s go.”
Those are the Everywheres. Actually, I do the Somewheres, all the time. These are the same Somewheres. “You do so much!” others say to me. Yes, I think, I fill in the gaps. Mostly it’s in circles or the criss-crosses of the same destinations, many reached by bus and streetcar. I am grateful I can keep going, that I can arrange a somewhere to go to.
I tell myself I was so fortunate to have an Everywhere buddy for as long as he lasted. Even then, at the end, he was hanging on: staggering off the plane in Paris because he was weak but insistent. Going to the Beach Chalet for a lunch he couldn’t eat after getting chemo for hours because the sun was out, trekking to Pacifica Beach to look at more of the ocean, leaning on a walker. That didn’t last. He didn’t last.
Here was the most outrageous “everywhere:” It was years ago (wasn’t everything? I mean years before the years ago), a bright Saturday morning and we were in our apartment. I’d just made a chocolate rum pudding—a big bowl of it. He, my Everywhere-adventurer, said, “Why don’t we go to King’s Canyon? I’ll pack the tent. Bring that along.” He gestured to my big bowl of pudding. So we did. We drove for hours. We pitched a tent in the dark. We sat around the campsite and had that pudding. Good lord.
I don’t risk spontaneity with the few women who like to do the things I like to do. We plan where we’re going. The magnolias are in bloom; the opera is starting its season; it’s play time at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. These are all fine and interesting and wonderful somewheres to put on a calendar.
But oh, the “Let’s go!” The “Why-don’t-we?-Want to’s!” How I miss them.