Two nights ago, I went roller-skating with Melanie, a friend from high school. I met her four years ago. During my freshman year of high school, I stage managed my school’s production of Cats. I ran the show like a fourteen year old with a power complex; I screamed at the cast, demanded respect, and would make a ruckus for the fuck of it. I was a little prick, because I wanted to rise through the ranks of my high school, get a scholarship, and get the fuck out of South Florida. Melanie couldn’t have cared less. She showed up late to tech rehearsal, could never turn the fog machine on, and laughed when I screamed at her. A lot of the techies drove me nuts, but even before I befriended her, I only remembered Melanie.
Over the years, we bumped into each other in the dark room. She seemed like a lazy party girl, so I would roll my eyes whenever she crossed my path. Her and my photography teacher constantly argued. Melanie turned everything in late, which isn’t the best way to get a teacher to like you.
Then, on what seemed like any other day, Melanie started carrying. She printed like a machine and lived in the dark room. She talked about going to art school, winning awards, and becoming an artist, not for fame or ego, but because something inside of her told her to shoot and print. She printed, failed, and printed again. When I was fourteen, I misinterpreted her. Melanie had the same spirit as me. She was motivated and wanted to get the fuck out of the Sunshine State on her terms, because she needed independence, her own life. Her terms were just different than mine.
Still, we never spoke again until senior year. She overheard me making fun of some ridiculous party I went to over the weekend, where I saw one hundred white girls singing Biggie’s “Juicy” on a lifeguard stand, and asked me to tell the story again. She laughed and then after that, we would photograph each other, go to lunch, and talk about life.
Last time I saw her, we still lived in Florida. Now she photographs Patti Smith and Cat Power in the Bay Area, and I write and attend college in New York. Twice a month, we send each other our work and talk on the phone. Even though we barely see each other, when we reunited I felt the connection I remembered from our first encounter.
Four years ago, I felt anger. On Tuesday, I felt love, friends, and something I typically hate: family, the feeling of a connection that surpasses understanding because it’s otherworldly, shouldn’t exist, and typically genetic. On the surface, we seem like polar opposites, but on the inside and on the rink, we sing the same song.
Skating in circles, to “Billie Jean,” she looked at me and then slid out of the ring. Across from me in a booth lit by neon rays, she says that this “is so spiritual” and it is. Right there, we remember the first day we met and our mutual hatred for each other. For years, we caught each other’s eyes but thought we belonged to separate worlds. I hung out with AP girls and she hung out with skater sluts. We figure we knew each other from another life. We talk about this in circles, getting nowhere and also getting somewhere. This conversation has come up before, but today I understand it for the first time.
It’s something that could only happen at a roller rink, because when you travel around and around the same broken, wooden rink, you enter a trance. You hear the music, forget the face of your friends, and skate. We can only hear the language of the other world, where we all come from. We leave our bodies, until we skate off and transition back to earth, where Melanie and I speak separate languages but understand every word.
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