The Valley.

Air on the G String.

“Even in facing the same horizon, there are hills and mountains we need to climb on our own. Rivers or oceans we might get lost in. But the hope I continue to hold is that we’d make the time to meet again in the valleys or on the shores, that we’d reach each other on lifeboats or rescue helicopters if we needed to, that we wouldn’t need to scale every cliffside alone. Solitude does not negate friendship. Molly and I are similar in that understanding… But for all of my friends, when we do meet… it is as if no time has passed at all.” - Excerpt from “Fondness: Speaking On Friendship.” 

It is six in the morning when I land back in my hometown, still dressed from head to toe in black which is the signature look for a roadie such as myself. Pocket knife hastily removed and tossed onto my bunk in the tour bus prior to booking it to the airport, the utility bag strapped to my chest, cargo pants, and work boots still make for a sight to see when taken out of my usual environment.

It is jarring to be ripped back into something adjacent to normal after being on the road for a month putting on upwards of six shows a week. Almost equally jarring is to step on a plane in sunny San Diego and step off into all the changing colors of autumn and gusty winds of Northeast USA. The clouds look a little ominous but, all in all, it’s a good day for an October wedding. 

Counter to the sunset hues of the foliage, Molly pulls up to my apartment building in a long emerald green dress with prints of flower vines, a pair of steep gold heels latched to her feet, and a black and white patterned cotton jacket draped over her shoulders. Her hair is a lot longer than when I last saw her even though at the moment my brain couldn’t pinpoint when exactly that was. Definitely not 2023. Was it 2022? Yes. That summer in her garden where she informed me that she was moving far away with Kevin who today sported a standard navy blue suit. I’m still in my stage blacks, clearly sleep deprived, beanie askew on my head, and more than the usual amount of dirt under my nails. 

“And this is why I make it a point to arrive with time to spare,” Molly said looking around the tree lined street. I’d only been living here since the summer so this was her first time seeing the place. She and Kevin had just driven in from the countryside but I figured the quiet and unusually grassy city block I now called home didn’t fully re-trigger her disdain for urban life. 

Inside, I show her the few outfits my mother and I went out and bought earlier in the day after it was determined that nothing in my closet was anywhere near remotely good enough to wear to such a stately wedding as this one. Molly insisted I choose the black dress with the billowy white sleeves and sort of built-in bow along the neckline. Tossing on a quilted jacket and a purse that belonged to my grandmother, the portion of myself I could see in the small mirror above my bathroom sink looked a bit like a forgotten American Girl Doll. 

“Don’t forget your necklace,” Molly said as I scrambled to turn off the lights. “Your mom wanted you to wear the necklace.” So I did - a purple and silver turtle pendant - my high school graduation gift and the only necklace I owned. Shuffling through the leaves back to the sidewalk behind the couple, I’m distantly reminded of prom night almost twelve years ago back when Molly kicked off her heels that sunk into the ground of the school courtyard and commented on that being the reason girls like us needed dates. We needed a man’s arm to hang onto to make sure we didn’t sink into the ground. Now, Kevin fulfilled that role as she navigated the terrain. For myself, now owning classic black Oxfords, I lazily kicked the leaves as I walked with ease. 

Molly, Sadie, and I have had the same Facebook group chat going since 2008. To scroll back in it is to see the archive of our friendship trio. For as long as I have known her, Sadie has been exceedingly brilliant and exceedingly driven. Her time at Yale was only the starting point for a life of investigative journalism, workers' rights efforts, and women’s charity. However many words there are in the dictionary, I’m sure she knows even more whether that be in English, French, or Hebrew. However many books there were in the library where this wedding was taking place, I’m sure she has read just as many. Sadie knows what she stands for and she knows what she is against. Sadie used to not believe in marriage, and that is the thing that weighs on my mind as I wait for her wedding ceremony to begin. 

Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 (more commonly called “Air on the G String”) is a piece many are familiar with. In the back of my mind buried in the many semesters of music education, I knew it was commonly played at weddings. But sitting in the back row of chairs as I was with the string quartet right behind me in the large limestone and marble foyer, I couldn’t recall ever hearing a sadder piece of music in my life. Much more than myself, Sadie looked like a doll, white as a ghost admittedly looking stressed while the haunting sound of strings bounced off the walls, like a performer who had rehearsed but not enough so that it looked natural and effortless to the audience. It did nothing to curb the overwhelming feeling of devastation churning in my gut. Unlike the groom, everyone stood for the bride as if to say farewell forever.  

I repeat in my head that this is a normal, happy occasion. That Sadie is the smartest person I know and knows what she’s doing. I then focus on the fact that here the three of us are in the same room together for the first time in over two years. Some of our other classmates are here too, all with similarly suited men beside them. It is at the following reception that I am introduced to them.

Elizabeth and Martina were close peers during our schooldays and, like Sadie, they attended Yale. Elizabeth introduces her boyfriend who, visually, is a bit of a carbon copy of Molly’s boyfriend. The two couples bond over their recent adventures in relocating great distances. For both women, their careers have taken a pause as their boyfriends pursue startup ventures with friends-turned-business partners. For both women, what they studied in college has lost its luster and online graduate school serves as the catalyst for a career change to something less specialized and more something they can pursue wherever it is their partners decide to move to next. Martina recently finished law school but realized she lacks the passion to practice law. For the first time in her life, she finds herself stagnant thinking about what she actually wants for herself rather than what others want from her. But in that stagnance, she finds herself engaged to the man beside her as of only a few days prior on the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. 

“I wasn’t expecting it,” she beamed softly, “but I figured, why not?” 

Everything that comes out of my mouth seems to shock the men around the table. What I do for a living tends to interest many. Every place they mention wanting to visit or potentially relocate to are places I’ve been. (“Oh, the Grand Canyon? I was just there last week. It was as it usually is. I’ve been there a few times but it’s fun to show first timers around.”) In all the discussions that take place over wine and cheese around a gathering of cocktail tables, I realize how differently people talk about the events and decisions in their lives when they are partnered. But eventually, the men form their own circle as I catch up more thoroughly with old friends. Out of the corner of my eye, I see them exchanging business cards with each other.

In my circle, feelings of stress brought about a sort of an… aimless state of limbo… cushioned by the feeling of being in love are exchanged. Everyone looks beautiful in their dresses and their hair and their accessories. The feeling of deep devastation I’d pushed aside earlier begins to seep through the cracks anew. It’s my first night all week not running a show. Instead, I feel like I’m on a stage alongside everyone else but struggling to play the part. 

By dinner, the partners of my friends have all become used to the way I speak. And the more I speak, the more my friends begin to sound like their old selves. Or maybe it’s the alcohol. I can’t be sure. I was the only one at the table not drinking. I find it immensely ironic that at Sadie’s book themed wedding, our assigned table is called Catherine Called Birdy, one of many novels we were assigned in school where our main female character wanted to avoid marriage at all costs. I suggested it when she asked in our group chat a few weeks earlier which book really summed up our school literature experience.

Eventually, Sadie and James enter with much fanfare for their first dance together and soon after, all the men at my table are pulled away to assist with the chair lifting component of the horah - a dance I hadn’t done since the slew of bat mitzvahs I’d attended back in middle school. Molly grabs my hand and pulls me to the dance floor where we join with others to go round and round and round as Sadie and James are lifted into the air. But once they find themselves back on the ground, the circle continues with many other pairs taking to the center to dance around each other. When Molly determines it is time for the two of us to do so, I know the moment will be etched in my mind as one of my happiest memories. I distantly think what an emotional rollercoaster of a day this is turning out to be. 

After a short while, the DJ begins a portion of the evening that Sadie seems to have dedicated to her childhood. The beginning riffs of Good Charlotte’s “The Anthem” blast over the speakers and each of her arms grabs Molly’s and mine. We then sing and dance together through Yellowcard’s “Ocean Avenue” and The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside.” And almost poetically as “Mr. Brightside” draws to an end, James and Kevin take Sadie and Molly away from me. I dance a little on my own before returning to the table to take another attempt at the wedding cake that tastes like sugary cardboard. 

Looking at everyone around me, I remind myself once again that this is a happy occasion. That this is normal. But through the conversations I have had with others throughout the evening, I wonder if these moments in the valley hold less meaning for them who have resolved to walk through life with their respective partners, who don’t seem to ever need to climb hills or mountains on their own, and who overall seem less acquainted with but doubly fearful of solitude. 

For a second, I wondered how Molly would have come to regard me over all these years if I were a man. But what Molly and Kevin have is not what I want. The way she looks at him is not what I want. I think the reason that dancing with her during the horah touched me so deeply is that for just a single moment in time, it felt like our friendship was being acknowledged and celebrated even though most dancing around us had no clue who we were. And when belting the hook of “Ocean Avenue” at each other, proclaiming, “If I could find you now things would get better, we could leave this town and run forever, I know somewhere somehow we’d be together, let your waves crash down on me and take me away,” I could pretend that we were yearning for the same thing at the end of the long road that is the adventure of life. 

I return to the airport with the music still ringing in my ears, the wedding cake taste still on my tongue to catch the first flight out only hours after saying farewell to everyone. And just a breath later, I find myself somewhere on the road between Phoenix and Albuquerque at sunrise. I feel calm, focused, and centered. The succession of photobooth shots Molly and I took together at the wedding remain on the other side of the country on my kitchen table, the dress I wore abandoned in a heap on my bedroom floor, but my necklace placed neatly in a jewelry box with only the company of my class ring. Beside me, the old bus driver takes another drag from his cigarette exhaling out of the cracked open window. I slip my pocket knife back into its rightful place in my utility bag and lace up my boots for the day. In the distance are mountains and I sit back eager to see the other side.