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| The entrance to Libbey Park. |
Do you know how it is when you reunite with a long-time friend and it feels as if you have never been apart?
You still feel the weight of all those years without the
other in your life. Yet you also feel the closeness you
once shared. It’s such a relief to not
just talk, but to share the deepest, most personal thoughts and
feelings. Suddenly, from your
mouth come admissions you would never tell those with whom you work and
regularly interact.
In the Six Million Dollar Man story “The Bionic Woman,”
written by Kenneth Johnson, that’s the way Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers feel
when they reunite in Libbey Park. A
connection sparked between them long ago, and time has not extinguished
it. They talk about the busyness of
their lives, and crow their accomplishments, yet they also feel an aching
emptiness. They realize that, despite
all they have done—so many mountains climbed, so many goals achieved—they are
incredibly lonely. Thus it feels
natural, as they walk together, for each to put an arm around the other. Time passes by unnoticed, and suddenly they
hear the honking of a car’s horn. They
find themselves at the park entrance, and in the street a man steps out of his
car. Her ride is here: Jaime has to go.
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| "Let me tell you about my accomplishments!" |
As we wandered through Libbey Park, a woman walking her dog
noticed our cameras. She stopped and
asked, “Are you holidaying this weekend?”
We smiled and told her yes. “It
is beautiful here, isn’t it?” We had to
admit it was. “There’s so much to see in
Ojai,” she told us, and after talking a little more, she wished us well, and
resumed her walk with her pet. In “The
Bionic Woman,” Steve and Jaime’s feet carry them all over town. We don’t see the majority of their walk, or
what they see along the way. I suspect
that they didn’t notice the surroundings much either, as their eyes, and their
hearts, were so focused upon each other.
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| "Walk along with me, won't you?" |
I’m not sure what most of the locals thought as we strolled
through the park, taking photographs of what, to them, must have seemed rather
ordinary. I’m sure we stood out as
visitors: being so close to Los Angeles, the population of Ojai swells on
weekends. But we didn’t travel to Ojai solely
to relive moments from a TV show. We were
also celebrating a special moment in our lives, one that will link us
forever. Unlike Steve and Jaime, we didn’t
feel the crushing weight of years apart.
Instead, we celebrated lives spent together. So, in addition to talking, we also took
photographs, so that in the future we could look back and remember how much we
enjoyed visiting Libbey Park, and walking in Steve and Jaime’s footsteps.
Dragon Dave
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