I just found out my friend Morgan has a very advanced bone cancer. He was admitted to the hospital last week for chemotherapy but his kidneys have failed as a result of the cancer and he is not well enough yet for them to begin the treatment.
I was just thinking about Morgan yesterday. I knew him for a season - a friendship defined by the place in life I found myself. I dated his brother. And though Morgan and I had our own conversations and our own adventures, when his brother and I had nothing more to say to each other, our conversation ended as well. We tried to keep it going. We met up for coffee here or a burger there. But the reality of it was that I was too hurt, my heart too severely crushed. I just couldn't see Morgan with out the pain surfacing and I wasn't strong enough to carry it yet.
In many ways, my memories of Morgan are richer than those I shared with his brother. He introduced me to Pete's fish and chips after I read Angela's Ashes and couldn't get the craving out of my system. He was the first person to introduce me to social networks and virtual communities. And he is the mastermind behind one of my all time favorite days. One leap day (Feb 29, 2004?) I decided to celebrate by doing something out of the ordinary. Morgan came up with the solution. He was hitchhiking over to Slab City just outside of Salton Sea in California the day before Leap Day. He proposed I drive out on leap day and hang out for the day and then he could 'hitch' a ride back with me. It was a fantastic trip. Slab City has been featured in a couple of movies now. In fact, when I was there a crew had just recently finished filming there and they were pretty nonplussed about it except for the fact that now they had stage lights (white plastic buckets cut to hang over strands of lights. Morgan introduced me to Builder Bill, the stage architect and to the guy who ran the slab city informal library out of a shed off his camper. We explored the outlying areas and bought cheap wine and salami at the corner gas and grocery and sat in old airplane seats on a concrete slab in front of the stage watching the local talent. The concert lasted all day and the were so welcoming to outside performers. I got to sing a song or two with the band and then one all on my own. As night fell, we relished the sunset and the fading music and kept warm by fires in a barrel. On our way out of town, we took a swim in a natural hot spring. It was a magical day, an absolutely fitting way to spend a day that occurs only every four years.
Morgan made me realize my love for the open road. Though I could never embrace his preferred travel method of hitch hiking or the fact that he preferred to travel solo, I knew what it felt to miss the road. I posted this on his website almost exactly four years ago:
i miss the road. The hum of the tires against ridged pavement. the rush of wind from passing cars. The sun in your eyes or on your forearm as it is propped up in the window. lazy conversation driven by surroundings and circumstance and small spaces. I miss the simple pleasure of finding a clean bathroom and a friendly convenience store clerk just when you need it. the best meal of your life in some hole in the wall you know you will never find again. the comfort and company of strangers, allowing you to observe and belong somehow all at the same time. the people who remind you what could have been (good and bad) and what could be and who you are. the people who give deep insights as casual conversation, you are not what you do for a living, because it is as everyday to them as my morning cup of coffee.
i feel a part of me gasping for breath and i know i need open air, open road. I need the road again.
At the time, I was drowning in my own life - working a job that sucked the air out of my lungs and frantically flailing around trying to find my foundation again. In a lot of ways, God used Morgan to keep me alive through that. I wish I could do the same for Morgan.
