Carolyn Williams, somewhere out there
I remember Carolyn Williams.
She was the first person I ever told about Jesus Christ.
I told her at the corner of 43rd and Columbus ave., while we waited for the school bus to pick us up for Erickson Elementary. I got Mrs. Santa Bear that year, at Christmas. I met Carolyn at the bus stop, and told her about how Jesus will forgive our sins if we love the baby Jesus, and prayed there, in the snow.
Carolyn lived on the next block up, so we were besties for a while,
even after my family moved from 42nd and Columbus Ave. to 38th and 10th Ave.
Even after her family left Minneapolis for White Plains, to get away from the city.
I visited her out there.
Her mom was some type of native american, and she smoked cigarettes
and she was a Buddhist based on the art and furniture.
Carolyn’s dad, well. I have a couple memories of him. He was nice.
I remember we went to bother him in his bed, and he got out, and set up
water balloons or something with the other kids against him.
Maybe we sprayed the water hose at him through the window screens of the house, and he laughed in there. One time also he gave us turns riding on the back of his motorcycle around the block. We wore a helmet and everything.
But I don’t think I ran home and asked me parents, first. I remember pretty scary! Not that into it, even though he went slowly, and the street is wide, quiet, great-tree-lined residential streets.
I have a lot of memories from when I visited her in the middle of no where, white plains? Maybe I got the name of the town wrong.
I loved being out there. The sand, dirt, and plants for as far as I could see.
The northern lights, in the summer.
Carolyn, making dinner for all the kids around 8PM, beautiful sunset
out there. I was so anxious because it was very different from my family in my home in the city.
Cicada sound, Carolyn sweeping the dirt under the table and laughing in my direction (actually that was back in Minneapolis). By that time, she sweeped for real.
I don’t remember seeing their mom during that trip, but I think there was still Buddha ash trays.
I slept on an upper bunk in Carolyn’s room and tried hard to go to sleep at night, even when they said to stay up for better Northern Lights.
The wall of Carolyn’s room didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, so you could hear a lot, even if you elected to go lay down (which I did, same as I would now).
I have sensory overload, and I don’t want any more input for this 12 out of 24.
That was in .. hmm. we sent each other regular paper letters (pen pals) for a few years (do I still have these letters? I hope so, not that they would help me find her now). Then I went to visit her, and when I got home my parents said did anything weird happen there, and I said no.
What constitute weird or inappropriate?
I did still have a crush on Ramond her older brother (probably in 9th or 10th grade at the time?). He got accused of things later out there, a neighber, which would line up. He was giving out sexual energy while too young, and us younger, and I was aware of things like that.
Their dad definitely wasn’t there when I visited her up north. Her mom was probably working during daylight hours. I wonder if her mom is still out there in Minnesota. I wonder what kind of clan she belonged to, if it was one like Dakota Lakota, those I remember. This year must have been … summer of 1989? And I almost remember you, and almost miss you, Carolyn! I hope you’re doing great.
I saw Carolyn because I looked her up and we met up in the winter of 1998, like the first or second break in my “freshman year” at college. I visited home and we met up by the lake, in our cars, we drove there, and chatted. She said she’d been living in Minneapolis for awhile, with their dad, in a place near Lake St. and Chicago Ave. I thought, that’s a rough patch, a “criminal” hot spot, as far as we knew or heard what or where that was happening, (largely where we lived, so that wasn’t a huge deal).
Then I lost track of her. I don’t think she ever got on Meta stuff. She was a tough little lady with a hardy laugh. And good at cooking late night dinners for four or five people with what we find in the fridge.
I had to be flexible to stay with them for one or two nights, and that’s still a lot for me. It’s cool that my parents let me go. A lot of parents wouldn’t, especially these days.
I’m planning to go camping with folks this summer and not sure if I should instead book motel on Visa. but I bought a tent at Aldi, and should at least try to set it up. Anything where my dog can come is great for me, and she’s coming camping, yay. Should ask vet about extra vaccines or something.
I hope I could find Carolyn Williams again, someday.
I wondered if we’d still really like each and be besties, and visit each others houses, and play or work outside. No water fights or motorcycles, though.
We wanna chill and cook and walk in the sand when the sun goes down.
In the country that weekend I visited one evening, on an evening walk she told me one of her sibs had tried to kill himself
and that’s why they had to move up there,
Or maybe he told me himself, while we walked in the sand
And she told me that her other, older sibling
got accused by a neighbor of being highly inappropriate in some way
out there, in the suburbs, or rural wild west.
I forgot exactly what exactly she said by now.
Actually it was Jeffrey, not Raymond, who had pinched my booty cheek once, while going in their house at the old neighborhood, so something was wrong in the family, or not, but nothing bad happened. Except the minor assault on me which may have been the first. It must have been summer after 2nd grade for me, so Jeffrey was in like 5th or 6th grade.
I wonder if someday we’ll just be walking down some random street and I’ll see her playing the flute on the side with a hat set out for donations
and she’ll be like, Can I tell you about Jesus who loves, forgives, and saves you?
Hopefully not, honestly. But I hope she’s happy and relatively healthy.
And I hope to meet her again in some way, and laugh together with our crazy weird teeth that were always destined to chew the fat and spit it out
if there’s a gristle or something, like a tiny rock you bite down on in a greasy link of breakfast sausage, straight off the hot plate. And drink some Juicy Juice.