I have a friend. Actually, in my fifty-and-still-counting years of life and five states that I’ve lived in, I’ve collected more than one friend. I’m lucky because I found some of the best ones in Oregon.
I lived in Oregon for four years in the late 1990s. While there, I and some fantastic ladies formed Ladies’ Night. LN met each Tuesday evening, the night the boys chose to go mountain biking. We extended LN to entire weekends, known as LW (Ladies’ Weekend) one or two times a year.
After I left Oregon, I no longer participated in LW. My sweet, sweet girlfriends never lost track of me and kept me apprised of every single LW throughout the years. This year, I finally committed to attending. And boy — errrrr — girl, let me tell you, it was the best thing I have done for myself in a very, very, very long time. These friends are rock solid.
Nothing significant or crazy happened over the weekend. We completed a poorly designed jigsaw puzzle. We walked and talked. We ate, drank (not as much as we used to), played games, and listened to one another. We watched Wine Country (because we were in Oregon wine country) and Dirty Dancing (not because of Patrick Swayze but because of the “I carried a watermelon” line, something one of the rock-solid ladies brought up during the food planning process). We visited a bar and a winery, and mostly spent time together.
A rock solid weekend that wouldn’t have happened if H Craw didn’t find us the beautiful farmhouse rental. H Craw was the first person I texted after purchasing my airplane ticket. I wanted to confirm there was still space for me in the house. We have to distinguish the Heathers some how, since we also have a H Mo. Then I texted Nia to see if she was as rock-solidly dedicated to LW as I was.
Nia, who clearly is not one of the Heathers, is one of the ladies who still lives in Oregon. She said she was going to a rock and gem show that weekend, an event she attends every year.
See what I mean about rock-solid friends?
Then she said if you’re going to LW, then I’m going to LW.
What type of friend offers to forego an annual event to visit with me and ten other ladies for three days? I’ll tell you — a rock-solid friend who brings a puzzle to LW!
So, what do you think I did next? I told Mike, my husband, that we needed to go find some Oklahoma rocks for me to bring to LW! Sound stupid and boring? Well, guess what, my reader friend (if I get to know you better, perhaps we can be rock-solid friends too)? Oklahoma is home to two unique formations of interest to rock and gem enthusiasts — selenite crystals and rose rocks.
Mike and I set out to find us some good old Oklahoma-grown crystals. We loaded a bucket, shovels, gloves, and bottles of water in the care and drove to the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge. Here, on the salt flats, we dug for the hour-glass shaped selenite crystals, which are formed when saline groundwater comes into contact with gypsum. We found several in minutes but dug for a few hours in an attempt to find prettier, unchipped, completed (meaning full hourglass shaped) crystals.
A few weeks later, Mike, Alice, Zachary and I attempted to collect rose rocks on the shores of Lake Stanley Draper. Rains had recently drenched all of Oklahoma, resulting in high waters. We couldn’t get to the shore where rose rocks were reported to occur in abundance and size, so instead we enjoyed a walk on part of the 13.5 paved trail that encircles the lake.
Not to be deterred, I set out again by myself during a drier spell. This time, I visited the shores of Lake Thunderbird, the main water source for Norman, Oklahoma. I found my way to a bit of sandy exposed shore where an abundance of rose rocks sat waiting for me (or someone, or maybe no one) to pick them up and bring them home.
I brought the best specimens with me to LW in wine country in Rickreall. I gave them to Nia. As I interacted with my friends, most of whom I haven’t traded a single word with for ten, fifteen years, I marveled at our rock-solidness. We formed almost thirty years ago through a process that involved a dwelling called the Chicken House; Beer beer; the Heathers; Nia and her sister Joyce and their cousin Karen; a love and desire for womenship; and so many other indescribable intricate processes and people that will never be explainable.
And that right there is the definition of rock-solid. Something carved out of so many elements that have rubbed, flattened, crushed, shifted, supported and carried each other for so many years and still stands, and does not need to be fully described.
This ordinary girl sits on her rock-solid ass, contemplating the lesson she wishes to share with you today: Get yourself a watermelon and gather your rock-solid friends to puzzle over why Patrick Swayze’s half-dressed character lures a teenage girl into dancing dirty with him for the purpose of entertaining rich families who spend their summers at an elite beachside resort. I bet they never even went rockhounding. What a shitshow, if I may say so — and I may, because that is rock-solid something someone who is fifty-and-still-counting gets to say.