Ambria, My dearest

Ambria A.K.A – Meme (Chinese term of endearment, which I could be mistaken but I think means ‘little sister’ pronounced, may-may)

There are perhaps a handful of people in my life I would call if I were truly sad.  There are perhaps three of that handful I would drop whatever I was doing and run to if they expressed a need – no matter how far – I would go.

Of those three, Ambria is the only person I would call if I needed help burying a body – and likely the only person for whom I’d hop on the next flight out, just to help her burry a body as well.  Does it get tighter than that?

When we were in High School, we watched the movie ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’ and the friendship that the two main characters developed reminded me a lot of us, their trouble –making, their bickering, their ridiculous challenges and even more ridiculous food fights.  We adopted the phrase ‘Towanda” from the movie and yelled it like a war cry as we drove Alaskan Highways in a 1979 baby blue Volkswagen bug convertible.  Mostly we screamed it when we knew we were about to do something that would get us into trouble. So we’d scream, “Towanda” and do it anyway.

Through the four years of High School, everyone thought we were lesbians.  I didn’t find out till much later when a friend called to ask me about the “signs” because he thought his girlfriend might be in the closet. “Why are you asking me?” I wondered.

“Well, uhm, because you and Ambria are gay… right?”

I was so astonished that I repeated the story to another friend I went to school with and said, “Can you believe he thought Ambria and I were gay?”

He shrugged and scratched his head and said, “You mean you’re not?”

Not that it mattered, I decided, because she’s my dearest.  I explain to people she’s more my sister than my friend. I don’t even remember having to work at the rhythm we have, it was simply there in the beginning.

We’ve been through divorces together, heartbreaks, loss and life changing decisions.  We’ve laughed and cried on the same pillow in the same conversations, broken ice on a lake to go skinny dipping, argued over jeans, had food fights that left batter in my ear canal and flour in her eyes, gone 9 months without talking then went to coffee and pretended like nothing ever happened, and driven two hours for a specific pack of gum.

We pierced our belly-buttons with a giant safety pin when we were 14 and sitting on the edge of my bed and although mine got ripped out a month later, she still has hers.

She was always the practical one.  I was always the dreamer.

She was always the first to rise to my defense – especially those times I didn’t even know I’d been verbally abused, until Ambria had flayed someone up one side and down the other for their stupidity or rudeness.  Usually about the time I figure out what just happened, she’s grinning smugly and someone else is walking away with their tail between their legs.

We used to stop at the store for breakfast before school and get a giant muffin, I always liked the muffin tops and she always liked the paper-wrapped bottoms. When I was younger I thought of it as a sign, a metaphor that we were perfect halves, complementary in our tastes.  She’d always pluck the top off the muffin and hand it to me as we drove toward school and talked about boys or homework or whatever.  And since I’ve been in Portland and she’s been in Alaska, every time I get a muffin, I end up plucking the top off and leaving the bottom in the wrapper on the floor of the car until it gets crusty and starts to stink.

She’s the one who will actually tell me if the jeans make my ass look big.  And she’s also the one, despite all logic, who will tell me that my dreams are entirely reasonable and she’ll support any decision I make in pursuit if my bliss. Somehow, because she said it’s possible, I believe her.  When other people tell me, maybe not so much, but Ambria – I believe it when she says, “I know you can do it.”

I don’t know what I give to her.  I hope it’s enough.  I hope my balance to our equation is somehow as fulfilling to her as it is to me.

I count myself one of the luckiest people in the world to have a friendship that has lasted so long and fulfilled so many facets of my life.  I’m lucky to have someone who calls to tell me when I’m being an idiot, or laughs with me over the simplest successes.  I’m lucky to have someone who finishes my thoughts when I’m too emotional to speak – and someone I can call in the dead of night, who will show up at my house with a shovel and a tarp and not as a single question.

Ambria, Meme, in case I haven’t told you in the last hour – I love you. Thank you for coming down to Portland just to see me.  I said I was lonely, and here you are, no questions asked, you simply got on a plane. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing my muffins – wow, that didn’t sound right at all…..