Lockdown

It's funny what you think matters when you're in high school.

I didn't make it into the top choir--the coveted singers--so I

was in the second-best choir for two years.

And I was always certain I'd be thought as and remembered

by my less-than-perfect place in the caste system.

Disregard the love I held for my own choir and director, I was

utterly ashamed for failing to make it to the top.

Anyway, you know who did make it to the top?

My best friend Olivia.

Olivia exceeds at absolutely everything she tries.

That especially goes for music.

So she was the queen and I, her faithful jester.

Olivia picked up the guitar, snowboarding, singing (oh the

singing! she sang at our wedding, you know), chemistry,

math ... and countless boys vied for her heart.

I felt inferior to her talent, but in friendship we were equals!

In our friendship we are mutually creative, mutually goofy,

and mutually supportive. We like almost all of the same things.

We think differently but complimentary.

And sometimes our choirs would practice together.

During one rehearsal the school held a lockdown drill.

Where a fire drill is protocol for a fire and a tornado drill for

a tornado, the lockdown drill comes in handy when someone

shows up to school with a gun in their coat.

So we fell to the ground and our teacher hit the lights.

Olivia instinctively handed me one of her earbuds and played

this song (Gong) from her iPod.

We lay there in the dark, one ear down to the carpeted

cement floor and one ear up, cradling the music in it.

I remember the world falling away.

Never mind the twenty other students in the room.

I was with my best friend,

listening to the best song in the world,

in the dark.

I love this memory. It's perfect.

I remember smiling big.