Riverland
Sara Davis and I grew up in the same city at the same time. Our parents go way back — her dad and my dad are both pastors, and I faintly remember meeting her at a citywide church event in high school. She went to the same school as a lot of mutual friends. I mostly knew her name through them, and I recognized her from their Facebook photos at a baseball game one time. That’s it.
Years later, after college, I found myself in a job in Austin that I hated so much, I took a yearlong internship in Katy to get away from it. The flat, nondescript, humid Houston suburb felt like rock bottom to me when I first arrived, and I made that well-known. I also made it well-known that I’d be leaving as soon as the internship was up. When my dad mentioned that Sara — Regan, not Davis, by then — was actually making the same transition at the same time, I was like, “Cool.” And never thought about it again.
To my memory, I don’t think I ever reached out to Sara. I don’t remember hanging out with her, either. I know that at some point we somehow ended up in a haphazard Bible study group together, but the group met sporadically, and between YoungLife (the reason she and her husband, Dave, had moved to Katy in the first place) and the part time job she had at Texas Rock Gym, she couldn’t make it half the time. And anyway, by that point I was dating someone from Dallas pretty seriously and we had determined I’d be moving there after my internship was up. I was already half-checked out of Katy by the time I made that move; but Sara and I must have hung out at some point in there, because she and Dave were at my going-away party. I remember thinking they wouldn’t be in Katy much longer, either. I knew she felt the same way I did about it.
Y’all know this part of the story — I moved to Dallas, it quickly became evident that I did not love the guy but did love my job. Stayed for nearly two years, had the horrifying realization that Houston actually felt like home, that I missed the people there, blah blah blah, I moved back.
And this time, one of the first people to text me was Sara.
She and I had kept up the tiniest bit while I was in Dallas, and every time I texted back and forth with her, I was kind of surprised she and Dave were still in Katy. I told her so, and she laughed, and admitted that she was, too, sometimes; but in our conversation it became clear we’d both landed in a similar place with it all. We felt like this was where we were supposed to be, no matter how ill-fitting it seemed. I was glad for the company.
We both work for ourselves, so we started working at that same coffee shop together, sometimes.
Then I started climbing, and we started climbing together.
Somehow she tricked me into being a YoungLife leader.
And things just kind of snowballed from there. Now we celebrate each other’s birthdays and hang out at each other’s houses and buy each other food and go on camping trips and hang out with each other’s parents and have seen each other cry a lot and share weird inside jokes that make no sense and have no distinct origin.
And sometimes I think, “What if you could go back in time to that Hyde Park High School baseball game and point to 18-year-old Sara across the bleachers and tell 18-year-old you that in a few years, that girl will be in the running for one of the people who know and understand you best on earth?” She has become the kind of friend who will always be a friend, no matter where the seasons take us or how the relationship evolves.
Something else about Sara — she’s a musician. And the way I’ve told stories here, in writing, about all the transition and change and growing that is your twenties, she has done in song.
In the very first conversation I had with her after moving back to Katy, she mentioned that she wanted to put out another full-length album. One that she would produce all herself. I don’t know a lot about music production, but I know enough to know that it is hard, and hard to do well; and that Sara lived in a small, suburban apartment, and that really beautiful, well-produced music does not usually come from the inside of small, suburban apartments.
But Saras don’t normally live in them, either. Bright, tenacious, utterly sincere adventure-hounds with an eye for beauty and a rowdy appetite for life.
And here she was, already defying the odds.
So when Riverland came out yesterday — eleven of my favorite new songs, all sung and played and produced from her corner desk and kitchen table and tiny porch and cozy couch and heart and soul — I wasn’t surprised.
I was proud.
I was stoked.
I was a little in awe, because while I’ve always had words to narrate my life, I’ve never had a soundtrack; and sister just made one; and I cannot imagine being able to do that or being brave enough to release it to the world after I did.
And mostly, I was grateful — for this season and this friend I’ve gotten to share it with.
