Look familiar? For the month of July, I will be re-sharing some of my favorite Tiny Letters from over the years. This will give me a chance to share my proudest work with new subscribers and let you revisit old newsletters that you probably haven’t opened since. In the meantime, I’ll be getting married, but I’ll be back with original content the first week of August. Thanks for reading.
K
We watch Jenna grow from a speck into a human as our ferry nears the dock. I squint with my hand held against my face as a visor, the sun high, bouncing off the clear water around us. She waves her arms when she spots us on the deck of the Tazlina. The air is light and I'm desperate for a shower.
Jenna wears her signature Ray-Bans, oversize denim overalls with green trim and a worn pair of wine-colored Danskos. I don't remember if we get food first, or if we hike to Battery Point. Andrew and I dig through our suitcase in the back of her white truck and excavate our brand-spanking-new hiking shoes. I stand on one leg with a death grip on Jenna's shoulder as I pull the heavy boot over my heel and lace it up.
We're in town for First Friday. Our friend Trav is a chef and he prepares paella in a sculpture garden at the fort. The pan is the size of a car tire, or maybe bigger. I inhale my serving as a small crowd forms behind us. We get cocktails at the distillery and sit outside. Dirty Martini, Bourbon Manhattan, Rye Old Fashioned.
Shelby invites us and some other friends to her yurt for dinner. A fisherwoman by trade, she prepares sushi with salmon she caught earlier in the day. We sit on her deck illuminated by fairy lights and drink Prosecco to celebrate Jenna's 1-Year-in-Alaska Anniversary. I have to pee. Jenna grabs some toilet paper and walks me through the back of the yurt, and we cackle as I slide off the overalls I'm wearing and hover stark naked to pee on the leaves. White against green. Us against the world.
During our visit, Jenna thinks that Andrew has become disillusioned with her. I'm really not sure, but I deny it anyway. I love that I can hang out with both of them together, these two people I love.
It's the final night of our visit, I think, and we dine at Fireweed for our Last Supper. We meet J's friends, our new friends, on the beach for a bonfire. We huddle with IPAs, we sing Emmylou. The northern lights hover above across the outline of the mountains, green against the black sky.
I used to think I was an anchor between them. How ridiculous and self-centered! In their friendship with each other, both Jenna and Andrew have been anchors for me. Jenna sits at our table in Pittsburgh and pokes and pries in an even tone until Andrew and I listen to one another. Andrew mediates my friendship with Jenna as we claw through growing pains and hurt each other, only to cement ourselves in each other's lives, live in each other's skin.
We sit outside at a picnic table, devour greasy cheeseburgers washed down with Alaskan beer. Before we leave, I notice a sticky fly trap on the inside of the window. Look! I tell Jenna, half excited, half horrified. The thing is c o v e r e d in flies and other insects. A sheet of dead bugs. In a restaurant! I love it here.
Andrew doesn’t speak to us as he plows through the final chapters of Conversations with Friends. We sit on the beach down Mud Bay Road and drink $14 Bordeaux from mason jars.
We make cauliflower pasta in Jenna’s kitchen. Her cabin is minimalist, at best. The largest pot sits on the stove lopsided and the picture I take while giggling is out of focus. I think about the pots that clutter my ample cabinets, the ones I haven’t pulled out in I don’t know how long.
Our last morning in Haines, the three of us are on a mission to shoot all of the exposures on her roll of film. We drive to different points in town and pose for each other. Kelsey in front of the truck. Andrew and Kelsey on main street. Jenna and Kelsey on a picnic table at a viewpoint. Mountains tower above us and a tourist van rolls up. Do you want me to take a picture of the three of you? The three of us.
It's time for us to drive to the airport, a generous title for the landing strip just up the road. Jenna's roll still isn't finished. Light is our enemy. We are afraid to open the back cover of her camera and destroy all of the priceless moments we've captured over the past week. Jenna plans to hand off her finished roll to me so my Dad can get it developed at the Color House in New York. She tries to remember how many exposures were on this roll of film. 24? 36? How many have we taken? Time runs out. Jenna releases the cover from the back of her camera. I scream. There is no film in the camera.
Of course there is no film in the camera.