the top margin, saskatchewan

I wrote 10:53 in the top margin of this page. And now, two weeks later, it all comes back. The Saturday before last, walking down a slushy road in Caronport, Saskatchewan. Robyn and Sydney on my left. The way it smelled of last night's campfire, like mornings at the lake. I don't have anything of much significance to say about any of this, but according to the top margin, I wanted to remember it. According to the top margin, I want to remember a lot of things. Writing in that space up there is my way of saying "remind me to tell you...". Remind me to tell you about speed-dating on the eleven-hour bus ride and eating waffle sundaes at a café at two in the morning. Remind me to tell you how about how good it felt to hear this song live again and how in awe I was when I left Saskatchewan. All those human-shaped holes in my heart, I didn't even know I had them. How long had they been there? I left in awe because they had been filled.

It was Saturday night and I'd only known you for two days. It was the night my friends and I and two thousand other kids cried and listened and held each other. And when there was only sniffling left, we unbraided heads from shoulders and hands from hands and there you stood with outstretched arms. "My new friend, Abbey," you smiled, "come here."

I came. A human-shaped hole was filled.

And you. We were one, maybe two hours from home, the last leg. It was dark and blizzarding and the last of us were all huddled around one seat, talking. Faces didn't exist, only voices, the odd piece of raw expression made visible by a passing headlight. We had questions and you seemed to have all the right words. Not answers, per se, but questions for those questions. It made sense.

There are more names in the margins, more stories in those names, more human-shaped holes yet to be filled. I hope that there will always be another one.