here today

 

old friends

I can't read those 2 words without the music of paul simon behind them wistful and yearning and slow. old friends. bookends.

We sat at Porque Non? watching our street wake up. Hip parents out with chubby toddlers messy faces tousled hair. dogs everywhere sniffing our plates as they passed. Miss Holiday dressed all in white coming home from church. white shoes, white skirt, white jacket, white hat. Working in the yard again today? she asks. Nah, not today. That's a nice Dogwood you planted. Real pretty. Thank you, Miss Holiday. I smile cos it's like getting a compliment from my gran. We say good-bye and she walks off shining like an angel living in an old house with a caving in roof.

We sat at Porque Non drinking negro modelos and they arrived. Old friends. Last we said hello was at their wedding an invitation not to turn down and yet there I was in a room full of taupe wearing red and wondering how soon I could leave. Toasts were given. People cried. Inside of me I closed the chapter that had them in it, these newlyweds. And yet Sunday there they were waving to us. Old friends.

and so we sat and talked and ordered chiliquiles playing the game of catch up but mostly noticing that it was good to be there together. and once again I was reminded that life is full of these neverminds these what did you knows. bookends have to be moved to make room for the latest additions the shelf is getting crowded but I would rather let it pile up overflow, creak in protest. I would rather have that then an empty tidy room.

later that day gazelle. smelt and mr. s. after so long of missing each other were suddingly sitting in the gardens laughing and I considered the history we had made in our time in this town. keeping silver strands of connection going even when we felt lost or needed to be lost for a time still they were there and now on this day, this sunday filled with chance meetings, I smiled at these dear bookends. still without the details of their lives from then to now but that will come and in the meantime here we are.

Can you imagine us

Years from today,

Sharing a park bench quietly?

How terribly strange

To be seventy.

Old friends,

Memory brushes the same years

Silently sharing the same fears

Posted by: 120pages at 11:30 | link | comments (5) |