A Visit From A Friend

Renee.
Renee and her son Harry.
Visiting Albuquerque.
A foreign, beautiful voice.
An unexpected phone call.
A gathering.
I can't believe it. And yet it seems so natural. I haven't seen Renee in over ten years.

On Sunday, July 29th, I missed the phone and heard the machine: "Naomi, I hope this is you, this is Renee..." In that deep, musical, UNMISTAKABLE voice. Renee. From a time in Honolulu, when the world was music and dance, and there was a happening on every day. I used to talk to Renee daily. At work. On the phone. Dance classes and music on the weekends. Weeknights. Gatherings. People. Color. Clothing. Jewelry. Music. Food. We played downtown New Years Eve until just before the fireworks came on, performed for parties in strange, large beautiful houses, eventually were part of a fairly consistent nightclub gig. The multiple threads of a cloth, woven together, torn apart, weaving in and out of each other. So much was happening then. I think of Renee's penthouse apartment. Her sheer joy and enthusiasm for the open lanai, the ocean trade winds, rippling curtains, the sun, Hawaii, life on the Ala Wai canal.

Tonight, Renee and her son Harry are here. They are driving and flying, tripping around the United States. Washington, Oregon, Sedona, Santa Fe (where the hotels were full), Albuquerque (where we visited tonight), and Taos. Renee and Harry spent the day in Taos, drove a dirt highway, with two-house towns which they’d never seen before, cliffs dropping from the edge of the road down to the Rio Grande, boulders, Pueblo Indians, Indian bread, and hot springs. They arrive back in Albuquerque at 11:00 pm, Renee so tired that she can't think of going out to eat. I volunteer to bring food, but she isn't hungry now. So we settle on coffee and chocolate ice cream, which I pick up from a nearby Walmart at midnight and bring to the room. The hotel is a dump. The living room is dark, and the receptionist says that there is no one to fix the lights. The kitchenette has no utensils, dishes, napkins. It is bare. But we are good.

I can't believe I am seeing Renee walk down the hall towards me, but it also seems as if no time has passed. It's Renee, as beautiful as ever. Slender, white jeans, white decorated top, those signature braids. I meet her son Harry for the first time. He has a daughter who is no longer as small as she was when she visited Renee in Hawaii those years ago. He is lean, fit, braided to his mid-back, and in awe of, and enthusiastic about, the nature, country that he has seen. Renee and Harry have a bottle of wine. I bring coffee, chocolate ice cream, and home made oatmeal cookies. I'm glad I added extra cranberries and blueberries, but regret not having enough walnuts. We talk about their trip to Taos, their trip in general, the red rocks and colors of Sedona, Harry climbing a rock and sitting in a cave so high he was on eye level with a helicopter, the bad hotel (Best Western on Louisiana, which had them walk room to room, carrying their own linens to find and then move into a new room, when their original room was not workable), Hawaii, Harry's work as a fitness trainer and the fitness boot camps he runs in Georgia, a brief review of our recent working lives with Renee having climbed the corporate ladder via computer, her purchase of a five story Brownstone in Harlem in 2000, the crash of computer related work in 2003, my upcoming race and recent athleticism. Somewhere, around, 4:00 am, our conversation becomes vague and wanders off as fatigue hits all of us. I say goodbye, this brief interlude with these special people. Tomorrow, Renee flies to New York and Harry flies to Georgia.
Whew.

Feed your heart, says Harry. Find what you can do that feeds your heart.
Harry tells me he'd like to be less urban. The image of the single house, in the middle of nowhere, somewhere outside of Taos, on some obscure dirt road, has not left him.

Out of a dark Albuquerque night, in a dark shabby hotel, with these bright, beautiful people.

Feed your heart.