We Are Crew, Not Passengers

“Ok, now Logan. What is the first moment we remember with Logan?” I leaned into the table, my elbows digging into the polished, glossy wood. The giggles coming from around me were punctuated with glances over at a short boy with light skin and shaved hair that sat at the opposite end of the table from myself, pursing his lips at the attention as he had done for years. 

There were ten of us, all seated around the table on benches, in a cabin nestled in the middle of Jawbone Flats, Opal Creek Forest. It was the last field trip for us as a group, the graduating eighth-grade students of the small City View Charter School in Hillsboro, Oregon. As I looked around the table, the faces were as familiar as the faces of my family. 

“Oh, I’ve got this, I’ve got this. The first time I met Logan, we were playing a basketball game at recess, and as you all know he was trash.” Howls of laughter were met by shouts of protest from Logan, desperately exclaiming that he was not trash, he was actually very good, thank you very much. The memory was from Jack, who came to us in sixth grade with a big smile and plenty of jokes. 

Another of my closest friends sat to Jack’s left, staring us in the eyes for some extra theatrics. “One of my favorite memories of Logan,” Ethan began dramatically, “was when he thought he was tall but really he was still just a short little leprechaun.” Ethan had started at City View in Kindergarten, and hadn’t ever stopped growing taller and taller (hence his nickname, ‘tree’). The reason I am so tomboyish is due to my years of close friendship with Logan and Ethan, and I also blame my stubbornness on years of ‘tolerating them’. (Total joke. If anything, they tolerated me and my crazy ideas, which were never much more practical than ‘let’s overthrow the U. S. government as fourth graders and also stop climate change!’) A pause from our laughter was pierced with the mouth-watering scents of pasta, sauces, and other foods from the kitchen. With groans of hunger and anticipation, we glanced at one another in hopes of another story. 

“Okay, okay, here we go. I have so many Logan stories,” Kahlena began. I noted inwardly that Kahlena had only attended City View since sixth grade, whereas I had been messing around with Logan and Ethan since day one of Kindergarten, but let that go as it wasn’t relevant, or a good time to look for trouble. Tonight would be special and, hopefully, only fun. Hardly mattered, anyway, as we were all so close that she did know them better than anyone at public schools probably would know each other. Kahlena was the ‘popular girl’ if you could have popular students when the class size was as small as ours. Her friend Audrey was ‘popular’, too, the three of us making up the small-- yet bold, and somewhat fiery-- female population of our grad class. We were each so different, however, that it was easy to argue over petty things like this one, often needing the boys to intervene and remind us that we were all friends, and all overreacting. “My favorite Logan story was recently. We, the City View Leadership group, hosted the first-ever City View middle school dance, and Logan asked me out to the dance.” The laughing didn’t stop Kahlena as she barreled ahead in her story. “Right after I turned him down, he went and asked Audrey.” 

Laughing mixed with the noises of the cabin’s kitchen. “Hey, Amiah said no!” Logan threw his hands up. I laughed, the fading light of the sunset through the Hood Forest trees dancing on my closed eyelids. Yes, I would remember this night. 

“Amiah always says no!” Ian Bletcher and Tenzin--both with curly, ear-length hair-- shout together before we all laugh again. Ian, also a sixth-grade transitioner, pushed at Logan with his shoulder, Audrey beside him laughing, and Tenzin next to her. 

Tenzin was the one who settled most disagreements, solved the math problems, and could fix just about any situation with the right advice. He and I had been buddies since kindergarten, and he sat to my right (after Josh, and next to Ian Day). 

Talking continued for probably half an hour longer, reminiscing about the good ol’ days. We shouted, remembering when I was taller than Ethan (“Was not.” “I was so!” “Whatever. You’re short now, Amiah.”) before I decided I wanted to be a horse jockey. Somehow, after being told I was too tall for this position, I coincidentally (or maybe more like stubbornly) ceased all growth spurts. We giggled about the dance, when the boys of the middle school had grabbed roses from vases and passed them out to girls they were ‘thankful for’ (Logan had given one to me, his cheeks pinker than the rose itself. My friend Marin, visiting our tiny campus for the special occasion, laughed her head off all night with me about that). We remembered all through dinner: old teachers, like the second-grade teacher who had kids I now love like little cousins; field trips that had ruled, like going to Bend, Oregon, for a hike, rock climbing, and watching Tangled with popcorn and pizza in third grade; little moments in museums and at the food carts of downtown Portland, fresh curly fries steaming in our faces, gyros with crisp lettuce and savory meats dripping down our arms. 

Even after the food-- a thin, linguine pasta with different sauces, salads, and toppings-- was shoveled and enjoyed after the long day, the talking continued. 

Thanking the kitchen staff for the mean, we cleaned the dining hall and did the dishes. Heading up the log stairs to the bunk rooms, we unpacked bags and slipped into pajamas. It was just the three of us girls in our room, perfect for sharing the mint chocolate freeze-dried ice cream Audrey had hidden in her duffel. When we finished, the boys were already out in the little library/ game room of the cabin’s secluded upstairs. Josh, Ian Day, and Tenzin played Uno, with poker and chess next on the list. Logan, Ethan, Jack, and Ian Bletcher stood talking by the racks of old books, faded and tattered old newspapers, guest books, and natural guides to the woods around us. 

I popped up behind Logan with a hiss, and he screeched in surprise, spinning around and laughing when he saw me. Ethan jumped next to him, sliding into the bookshelf on the slippery wood floor. These were my best friends, and as we sat in the hall, talking a little longer just the three of us, I began to become excited. We were entering high school! We would be in control of our lives and go to big music concerts and more dances and have fun, and then when we became adults, we could go to more ghost tours in underground Portland, and visit all the time. 

“You guys excited for growing up finally?” I asked, sliding my feet in front of me, fuzzy wool socks skimming the floor. My eyes traced the blue-green pattern, mind still reeling from our high expectations of the distant future. 

“I mean, yeah, kind of, but I’m really going to miss you guys.” Logan looked down at his lap as reality hit me harder than a train, bringing me back to Earth. As a small charter school, students could come from any town, as long as they had a way to get to school (located on South East Bentley Street in Hillsboro). Logan lived in a nice house in Beaverton and would be going to Beaverton’s Health and Science High School, but Ethan and I would be at Liberty High School, a Hillsboro public school. Even that was lucky, as I had only recently moved into that district, and would have gone to a different high school entirely. 

“I’m going to miss you, too, Logan. You know, we’ll all have known each other for ten years after we finish freshman year.” I smile at him, leaning a little closer with a half hug. The school motto—“we are crew, not passengers”— popped into my head, reminding me of the years we spent so close to one another, always leading and helping out, never leaving a friend or person behind. His sad eyes smiled a bit, and Ethan nodded. 

“We’ll be fine, dude.” Ethan cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his next whisper. “Look who you’re sitting next to.” It was a really old joke, one that made Logan and I laugh as I leaned away, protesting with ‘eeeewwww's and ‘nooo, Logan!’s as I had always done. Bouncing to my feet, I ran toward the girls’ bunk room, shrieking when I slid across the floor in my wool socks and nearly into the wall. 

“It’s like skating!” Ethan and Logan hopped up to join me, and as we jumped and spun around in the wide hallway, I could see Audrey and Kahlena talking with Ian B., our two teachers reading over botanical books and comparing the authors, and Josh, Ian D., and Tenzin shuffling for a second round of poker, Jack watching on as commentator. 

In the moments that drifted by, I was half in the real world and half somewhere else. I didn’t know I would move to Washington, one hundred and eighty miles from home, just six months later, each of us ending up at a different high school after all. I had always believed that we would remain friends for the rest of our lives, and after the pool parties and laser tag and arcades and gingerbread houses, who would have thought we were wrong?

We skated on the floor, bouncing off the walls, laughing until we were all pink and the others joined us, and then until the teachers and chaperone forced us to bed. Even if we moved apart, we promised that night, we would keep in touch. Maybe return to Opal Creek after graduating high school. Get the old ‘gang’ back together. 

When I first learned I was to move, my initial thoughts were of City View. The kindergarten classes I had helped for the past three years were growing up, my mom still working with students as a special education assistant, and of course my friends. I thought back to the night, though, when nothing could bother us from the comfort and reassurance we took in one another’s company. We were carefree and innocent, a writer might say. Arrogant and unknowing, an adult might critique. I think we just knew that someday, eventually, things would change, so we lived in the moments we could, found support and succor from each other when we couldn’t, and all loved each other like the closest family. 

Like that Twenty One Pilots song says, “sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was young.' Noodles cooking with homemade pesto, tomato, and even peanut sauces will always remind me of this night. While some things change, others don’t. My friends still make me laugh, Ethan is still growing, and Logan is still shorter than me (though he insists he will outgrow me someday). Tenzin joined me on a Seattle underground tour about a month after I moved, Ethan and I saw Frozen Two in Tigard before Christmas, and Logan and I went berry picking in August. Whenever I struggle, I call one of them, and vice versa. We lean on each other, talking every day. If anything, separating us has only proved to me how crucial close relationships are with the people you trust, even if they are states or even countries away. 

Rather than end this narrative with a stated moral, I’d like to end it with one last memory: graduation night. The gym, which we rented from the local church for the special occasion and large space, was crowded with parents. One by one, the eighth-grade students were called to the stage, slides covered in pictures glowing on the screen over our heads. There were baby pictures, pictures from kindergarten, and pictures of us as a class together. Smiling and laughing, releasing butterflies in first grade, working to restore a local creek in sixth, and of course, the ten of us, grinning in the dim light of the cabin at Opal Creek. 

The ten of us, plus our two teachers, stood in the blinding light, smiling at the cameras of eager parents as we hugged, holding our certificates as tight as we held one another. There’s a picture of this, framed on my shelf, that I look at every morning and every night. ‘City View Charter School graduating class of 2022’ it says in green gel pen, penmanship tilted and sweet. Looking back, that moment was brief. A literal snap of a shutter in our lives, but to me that was everything. Just a moment that we took each other, ignored any differences, celebrated trials and successes, loved one another like family, and knew that we would have each other, no matter where we ended up. One of so many moments, not all captured by camera or film, but each one just as crucial to my cultural identity as the next. That picture is proof that though life moves on, your family and friends don’t have to. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m looking into universities for their environmental sciences programs. Maybe that growing up is still years ahead, but we will get there eventually. At some point, I know I will text my friends again, and I’m sure they’ll call me, from wherever we end up. 

After all, we are crew, not passengers.