2001 -07-14 - 4:00 pm

I have actually kicked the habit of smoking, haven�t smoked at all during the day or night when I�ve not been writing. I no longer think of having a cigarette after I�ve eaten or when I�m drinking. I no longer want a morning cigarette or a cigarette with my coffee. But the cigarette before I commence writing - the thoughtful cigarette break in the middle of writing -- these are essentials.

I�ve been thinking about the next drive I make next month, while retrieving my car from Texas and driving it back to Vancouver - and I can already picture myself smoking on the long stretches of road at night . . .

I asked Ryan to come on the trip with me yesterday. What posessed me to call him, I�ll never know - but he agreed to go! He agreed to drive Route 66 with me from Amarillo to Los Angeles before I meet up with Larissa . . .

And I have found myself to be completely excited about this ever since --Sure I�m excited about seeing Ryan again, getting to know him, about laughing in the road and telling stories and having beers and driving with him --

But this brought up a lot of questions for me too -- And I�m excited about uncovering the answers:

What posessed me to call him?

Is there such a thing as destiny?

Are the fates of me and JIm and Ryan and Larissa bound together in a secret book somewhere - a libriary of connected souls ?Are we fulfilling a chapter of our future, or are we writing the pages as we go along?

What keeps us together over the years?Is it my spell that kees us together? My bell and butterfly wing and straw wrapped in Jim�s shirt tear - Is this what binds us?Is it the rings on our fingers?

What will I gain from Ryan�s presense on this trip?What is important about our friendship?Is it worth saving or are we arbitrarily sticking ourselves together?

I think of Ryan very rarely now. There was a time when I thought of him often. When I thought he was magnificent.

Who was the Ryan of the past? Was that just my illusion, my delusion, or does that person still exist? Did that person ever exist?What do I hope to see in him on this trip?

Am I doing all of this because Larissa would do things this way, or is this what I really want?

Am I simply writing this book and road tripping withRyan to invoke the ghosts of the past?

Am I trying to re-live my past or am I conquering it?

Would Ryan give me a kidney? Would I give one to him?

What questions will I ask him? What do I expect to learn from his answers?

Am I carving a new groove with my friends or still driving the same rut?

I know that on this trip with Ryan I will find the answers to these questions -- Whether directly from conversation with Ryan or through understanding of myself as I proceed.

Right now, I can�t say if I believe in destiny or not.

I believe that my friendship with Larissa is beyond destiny - its not arbitrary, its natural, it is sisterhood, it matters not to me whether it was destined to be or not because it truly IS. Its like the rising and setting sun-- I know I can count on the sun to rise again each day even though if I think hard enough I have no reason to know for sure that it will and I can�t say that the sun has a destiny to rise every day. It just does. And I can�t imagine my life without it.

And Jim - I don�t think destiny had a hand in our relationship. He was my first true love - but deep down we don�t mirror each other. We are friends now out of respect for our history together, and out of time and effort at staying friends, and now we�ve become family but not because it was our destiny, because we made it that way. If there is any destiny to our friendship then perhaps it involves the four of us, not just the two of us.

And Ryan? Was our friendship destined? I don�t know . . . I think we fell together at one time out of circumstance, out of hurt, out of jealousy, out of convenience -- So where do we go from here? Do we have any reason to continue our friendship?

Are we involved in a cosmic foursome, our fates intertwined for past and future reasons?