Sunday, 22 February 2004 | Names

Their names are in the phone book of my cell phone, in my old (and outdated) address book, and in the folders of saved emails—names of people I no longer communicate with (for whatever reason) but who were once important enough to me that I optimistically took down their information. (Good intentions and sentimentalism are what keep me from deleting them.)

Somewhere, I still have the names of people I met at various camps half my life ago. Stale street names and digits that belonged to people I shared half-remembered experiences with, people whom I would almost definitely not recognize today.

The kids from Rockingham. I went to choir camp for two consecutive years, when I was 9 and 10. The kids from my town (Lexington) would always share a large cottage with kids from a town called Rockingham, which was hours away by car and might as well have been Spain. Our cottage was divided in half (boys' bunks on one side of the building and girls' on the other) and sat right on the beach; the camp itself was located at an old fort we were sure was haunted. The kids from Rockingham were cool, and seemed somehow more advanced—they had an unusual air of confidence for kids that age, and they were already having first and second kisses, already having "relationships." All of us developed week-long crushes on the Rockingham kids. (I never aggressively pursued mine; they were always secret and from afar.) Anyway, I haven't seen or heard from any of the Rockingham kids since that summer. I have pictures, though, and I remember names.

Martin. Martin was from Virginia and was part of a throng of boys attending soccer camp at the local university. My friend Stephanie had befriended (and declared her love for) a cute skater named Brian who had an asymmetrical bowl cut and a wardrobe covered with the Vision Street Wear logo. Martin, his subdued friend, was by default the guy I was "supposed" to like, because it made a neat equation. Martin and I only became friends (rather than what Stephanie had envisioned), but we did keep in touch for at least one phone call after he'd returned home. I know this because my brother once wrote "Lisa, Martin called" on the refrigerator dry-erase board, accidentally using permanent marker. As far as I know, those words are still hovering on my parents' refrigerator, fourteen years later.

Dana. I shared a dorm room with Dana for a long weekend during freshman orientation at college. We'd stay up late talking, and we'd show the other freshmen around Raleigh, a city we both felt somewhat familiar with (namely, we dragged them to a dark, underground club that we both agreed was cool). During the four years that followed, we'd occasionally run into each other, and (I think) would mutually recognize that we would probably still get along if we ever made the effort to get together. The interaction never failed to go the same way: how-are-yous, semi-generic responses, we should get together sometime soon, I'll call you, yes that'd be great. (I think we hung out only once post orientation.)

I still try, to some extent, to contact the more recent ones—people whom I spent time with in hostels and trains in Europe, companions in old offices and classrooms—but none of us do very well, barring a handful of old close friends. I tell myself that we will be in contact again even though I don't always believe it, because I find the alternative rather depressing.

The names in my cell phone are the most recent ghosts, and therefore the most perplexing ones, as I've only lived in New York for a year and a half. How is it that I've already lost touch with so many people whom I've known only a short time? And why do I even find that sad? I couldn't possibly keep up with all of the people whose information I've collected over the course of my life, and I'm quite sure I wouldn't even want to. Even so, I don't delete them, and I think of them fairly often, if only because I scroll past their names so frequently.

...

Stef and Matt are visiting from Raleigh, harmoniously staying with me in my skinny apartment. I like how out-of-town guests encourage me to go places I wouldn't normally go, and encourage me to keep my days entirely open. I feel almost like I'm on vacation myself.