Old Friends

"Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be 70."

--Paul Simon, Old Friends

I met my best friend in the 6^th grade during that epochal transition from childhood to teen known as “middle school.”

My father was a school teacher, and hers was about to become one.  We both had stay-at-home Moms as was customary in the mid-60s, and we were both, by anyone’s definition at the time, children of the lower end of the middle class. 

We clicked immediately.  I can close my eyes and remember the first time she visited my house, eating petit fours (a gift from a wealthy, elderly aunt) and drinking pop while we played Monopoly at my dining room table.  Although our circle of shared friendships would grow through the years – many of them from wealthier neighborhoods of our small and class-conscious community on Long Island, which presented occasional challenges and disagreements, too – we remained hard and fast friends even as other important relationships of that era drifted away.

“We may have been the kids from the unfashionable part of town, but we were the real brains of the operation,” my friend said with a laugh, as we talked about our high school circle while we spent the weekend with kids in tow at her beach home on Fire Island.  It had been 3 years since we’d seen each other and a lot had happened to both of us.  We’ve both done well in life, but we’ve each faced some significant trials and disappointments too.  Her children are now grown and she is making big changes as she looks forward to a new and exciting chapter, including retirement in the next year or so.  I’m the late bloomer of the two – married late, a mother even later than that -- so I have more of a focus on my daughter’s teen years and all that comes with that.  Though these different circumstances mean very different personal choices and opportunities, we continue to see the world with the same gimlet-eyed humor and honesty.  Regardless of how life redirects our attention, that fact alone ensures we remain deeply relevant to each other.

Plus, nobody can out-talk us.  Nobody.

So here’s to my dear friend and the godmother of my child – Cindy, so beautiful at 60 that I look at her and still see the self-effacing girl I knew so very, very long ago.  One of the sweetest pleasures of my life has been the joy and endurance of our friendship. 

I look forward to that park bench at 70 if I know she’ll be sharing it with me from time to time.