Fourteen years ago, I went on a summer vacation with my family to Door County, WI.  My dad said that this would probably be one of the last times that we'd have to go on vacation together, so I had to go even though it sounded boring to my nineteen year old self.  As I was preparing to leave the resort, Sevda handed me a copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany.  We'd met the summer before, hung around in the same groups, but not really forged a friendship.  We had run into each other a few times during the year on campus, but we hadn't really spent any time together.  "Read this book," she said.  "Let me know what you think of it."

During that long drive and in quiet Door County, I had plenty of time to read.  I poured over this book, never having read anything quite like it before.  It was a fantastic story, filled with descriptive words and a complex plot and overarching themes like relationships, faith, fate.  Upon my return, we talked a bit about the book, but more than anything it became the shared experience that kicked off our friendship.  Symbolic throughout the book, the armadillo became the symbol of our friendship.  We wore tiny armadillo charms on thread necklaces, adorned with beads.  We stamped armadillo images on our letters and inside books, staking our claim to them, marking that we'd been there.  We made our mark permanent, going together to have it tattooed on our bodies.

A few months ago, as I prepared to kick off Sevda's long-distance bridal shower, I left a copy of the book in the resort library to replace the one we commandeered fourteen years ago.  And last week, I wrote Sevda a little note and enclosed a magazine article about restaurants, a recipe for zucchini with pistachios, and sent it off in the mail.  At the same time, she sent me a note as well, telling me about how much fun she'd had at her wedding and giving me little bits of love, talking about our friendship.  Our letters crossed over the ocean at the same time, each written in the exact same card, purchased at the same store - one in San Francisco and one in Minneapolis - just weeks apart. 

 

Always on our minds, thoughts of each other, marked with the same image.