Breakfasts with Eric were slow, careless mornings that stretched out into the late afternoons. Time passed like loose sand spilling from my hands onto the hot dusty ground.
In another life, Eric would have been a Southern California surfer. His long blond hair and laughing green eyes would make you think he was born with a surfboard under one arm and a joint in one hand. But Eric was from the panhandle of Florida, and fled to Seattle the first chance he got.
Photo by @MikeHatesBolts
His body is a work of art. Coming out west he got heavily invested in the tattoo scene. Both arms and one leg are a painted canvas. From shoulder to wrist and from ankle to knee he has myriad of tattoos. Spiders, flowers, painted women, and monstrous faces adorn his long limbs. When he climbs they dance and change, each turn of his body revealing new art.
I asked him about them once, he told me they come from different artists. He would travel all over the country to be tattooed by an artist he loved. He collected tattoos like some people collect baseball cards.
Breakfasts with Eric started during a heat wave in Squamish, BC one summer. We’d parked our vans sliding door to sliding door in a dusty yellow parking lot at the base of the Chief. I slid open my door and felt the summer heat roll into me. I sat on the floor of my van with a cup of coffee, grinning a good morning to Eric as he rolled out of bed and did the same in his van.
On the first day, we sat and stretched, and spoke of little things.
Eric had a box of sparkling water under his bed, which we slowly made a dent in as the sun crawled across the sky. The crisp crack of a can opening was followed by warm bubbling water down my throat. No matter how many I drank, I never quite felt hydrated.
On the second day we wondered if we should go climbing, and idly flipped through the guidebook.
We decided against it, and instead spoke of where we came from. I told him I came from the sea and the redwoods and the mountains. I told him that when I was little everyone ate sour grass and knew that kissing a banana slug was good luck.
He told me he came from Florida, and that sometimes when the storms were really bad you would hide underground. When you came back up everything you’d ever known would be gone and there was nothing but broken telephone poles and glass in its place. Maybe that was why it was so easy for him to leave.
We spoke of where we went and why. I told him a boy broke my heart and I spent a long time looking for something to mend it. He told me a girl broke his heart and he’d spent the last few years trying to love himself instead of someone else.
When we weren’t talking we were cooking, eating, strolling to the bathroom, or taking turns bathing in the river. The river was icy cold and ran merrily under a graffitied bridge. I stripped off my clothes and sunk my body into the freezing water. The silence was deafening, the cold absolute, and when I stood back up I felt reborn. I toweled off and stepped back into my clothes. As I stared at the graffiti on the cement walls, the vibrant colors reminded me of Eric’s tattoos.
On the third day we spoke of barely anything at all.
The comfortable silence stretched out between our two homes on wheels like a familiar song. I woke up to a cup of coffee that Eric passed me through his open door, and cooked breakfast on my little gas stove as the heat of the day began to rise.
Photo by @TheRealCornbrad
We sat on the floors of our vans, facing each other but talking very little. Eric began to clean his cams, I started sweeping my floor, and the silence continued to weave its way around us.
There is something very powerful about a friendship that can foster comfortable silence. We had an understanding that this was our space, we had spent days weaving it together and perfecting its shape. It’s shape had been formed by playing the ukulele, laughing at each other’s jokes, and cooking shared meals. Once we’d enclosed ourselves in this silence, there was nothing left to say.
Our vans formed a temporary home that was shut out from the rest of the world. Our space was full of sun, soft music, and the small comfort of caring for the few treasured possessions you have.
Photo by @TheRealCornbrad
Eventually, our silent companionship was broken. Like all good things, it came to an end. The weather changed, someone showed up at our doors, or we finally decided to go climbing, I’m not sure which.
As time passed, Eric and I traveled to different places. He went south, I went west and our interests changed.
Fortunately, in life you never spend too much time away from dear friends. In time, our paths would cross again and we would have breakfast together.