A Celebration

I crashed a party yesterday evening.  A good friend, in from California for about 48 hours to celebrate his mom's birthday, asked if we could get together for a visit.  When we realized that the tight schedule wouldn't allow even a quick visit apart from the several planned birthday events, I asked if I could join in for the birthday celebration.  I know his mom and some of her friends, so it wasn't stretching things to far.  And what a party.  The gathering of four elderly ladies and my friend was a very special time.  The oldest member of the party was 101 and going strong - - totally alert, engaged in the party.  At a couple of points when asked how she was doing she said she was fine and was listening.  As always when surrounded by people much older than myself, I felt, at age 59, like a kid again, entertaining the grown ups with stories intended to generate big laughs.  We dined on cocktails and pizza - - very exceptionally good pizza - - the favorite food of the 90 year old birthday girl, who mentioned that no one had ever crashed one of her parties - - I was the first to do so.  We engaged in 'who do you know' and discovered that we have many friends in common.  The 101 year old guest grew up in a rural Virginia town and knew well a man I'd met through a work project.  Another guest turned out to be the mother of another acquaintance.  And another guest talked of her late husband and her memory of him and me serving on a church committee many years ago.  More than three hours flew by and eventually the 101 year old had to call it a night.  She set off in her very spiffy walker with gears and brakes (like a racing bike) to head back to assisted living - - 'a long walk away' according to the birthday girl.  It was a very special way to spend time with my friend.  I think he and I both felt much younger by the end of the evening.

Unfinished Business

I love Saturdays.  I begin with a long list of things I want to get done in a day.  And sometimes something compels me that's not on the list.  This morning I was reading a piece in The New Yorker magazine about dogs and their relationship with humans.  Suddenly, I knew it was the time to begin work on some old business that I had been putting on the back burner for 13 years - - the ashes of a a beloved dog who died in 1998.  More recently acquired were the ashes of another wonderful dog who died last fall.  Leading up to my epiphany this morning, a few weeks ago I hatched a plan for both mounds of ashes - - to take them to the beach and commit them to the sea, with or without the witness of my husband and our grown children who are planning to vacation with us at the beach later this month.  As I read the article about dogs and man, I suddenly realized that my plan for the ashes needed to include a distribution strategy.  The list, I thought, what's on today's Saturday list?  Planting a couple of pots of a perennial thistle-like plant would be the perfect occasion at which to allocate some of the ashes.  I located the 13 year old box of yellow dog's ashes, and the beautiful urn of brown dog's ashes and headed out to the dog yard behind our house.  This is a lovely area enclosed with a white picket fence and lovingly planted with a variety of blooming shrubs, trees and flowers, where the dogs poop and pee.  We're down to only one dog now, another yellow dog who was the sidekick of the big brown dog.  I opened up both containers of ashes, looked for recognizable evidence of either dog (couldn't find any) and poured about a cup of each dog's ashes into two zip lock bags.  I marked one for the beach committal and one to take back to Baton Rouge, LA, where both dogs lived with us for a time when we lived there.  I put both bags of mixed ashes (actually looking each like a little terrarium of two different hues of ash in each bag) and  I scoped out the best spot for the two perennial pots of thistles plus ashes and commenced to digging.  Mixing ash with potting soil and topsoil I planted the perennials and marked them wtih a huge shell from a NC beach that brown dog liked to pee on.  It's a nice feeling helping those ashes move on beyond storage on a shelf.  I'm ready now for the beach service which I know will be much more difficult when the whole family gathers to recall how we loved those dogs like a sister and a brother.  Thanks be to God for hearts soft enough to weep over the passing of a dog and big enough to go on.

Friends, Part Two

Those who doubt that there are signs of God may need to pay closer attention.  Shortly after my post about friends, I went off to meet someone who we are hiring to help with a small job at our weekend home.  I posted the "job" through the church where I sometimes worship when I'm there and got six replies, all of them promising sounding.  One stood out by her choice to call me rather than email as did the others.  I liked the sound of her voice right away.  We made plans to meet at church.  After receiving a big hug from the rector, as I was looking around for my maybe new hire, I was put in the hugging mood and when she found me, I gave her a big hug.  We got some coffee and sat down, and for the next almost hour, we chatted like old friends.  I get teased about being too trusting of people I don't know, like the woman I met on the beach who pinched me on the cheeks in an angry fit when she discovered I didn't agree with her racist views of life.  The memory of that has taught me nothing, in fact, I'd forgotten the incident all together as I began to forge the beginning of a friendship with the woman from church.  She's just the sort of friend I like - - funny, self-effacing, interested in the world around her.  She and I traded information - - she's been married ten years longer than me, loved her work and is now a bit at loose ends since her retirement a few years ago, and loves the beach like I do.  Maybe it was the halo of meeting her through church, but I felt like I was not just interviewing a person to help me with a household chore but checking out my newest friend.  I told her that I hope that she and her husband will come to visit me and mine sometime and I think she may see the same spark of friendship that I see.  There were no awkward moments in that first visit and, after a quick review of plans for getting her started on the home chore, the natural time came to say goodbye, and another hug seemed like the right send off. 

Friends

Lately I've been thinking about friendship - - having friends, being a friend - - and have thought about how to be a better friend.  Years ago, a very good friend observed that I had so many friends that it seemed I collected them.  She meant it in the best way.  As the years went by, my list of friends changed, mostly because of my kids.  In one very special friendship, the kids were just the foil.  I had the great good fortune to meet the mother of one of my daughter's classmates, in nursery school, who I enjoyed as a friend for myself.  Years later, my daughter revealed that although she liked her friend who was the daughter of my friend, she was really just going along with all of those playdates because she knew how close I was with the other mom.  Now that my kids are grown I realize that I've let my friendships languish, except for a very few.  Seems like so little time to do the things that nourish a friendship, and so I stick with the friendships that require very little watering or nutrient.  That doesn't always work.  One friend, whom I've known in several capacities over the past 30 or so years, has been helping me think about friendship and what it takes to be and keep a friend.  In her funny way, she chides me for not holding up my end of the friendship.  In our infrequent get togethers I am discovering what our friendship means to both of us, now these many years later since we first met.  Lucky for me, this friend is very wise and has the advantage of more years of experience.  I am beginning to see the beginning of a new stage in our knowing one another, a stage of friendship, to add to our various other ways of knowing one another, mainly in volunteer roles.  When we're together, we laugh a lot, and I think this, for me, is critical to a good friendship.  When I think of my "best friend" that person is easy to identify as the person I met when I was 4 years old and with whom I've been friends every since.  Separated by miles doesn't seem to impair our friendship.  Lapses of contact leaves no wound to mend.  When I called this friend the other day with a belated "happy birthday" and missing the date by six months, she just laughed and said she was glad to know she isn't the only one who's not perfect.  We had a long talk on the phone, lots of laughs, and vowed to try to get together soon.  It might be years, really, before we actually see one another.  When my birthday comes around I'll know she's thinking of me, just as she knows I think of her on hers, even if I don't call.  "Old friends are the best friends" is really true, and yet, I am making a promise to myself to keep making friends.  I've heard it said that we should try to meet and get to know a new person every day, to expand ourselves beyond ourselves, and to discover what we have to offer, and to be reminded of what we need.  If you're reading this I hope you'll think of a friend you want to reconnect with or be encouraged to make new friends. 

Early Birds

Summer is my favorite time of the year.  I love it so much that my body seems to need less sleep and I wake up so much earlier than in the cooler darker months.  I might try to go back to sleep but for the eager feeling I have to get up and get at it, which might include doing a little work-work or noodling on the internet to look up the myriad of things that interest me.  I remind myself of Eloise at the Plaza, who follows her nose to see where she might find herself.  Just this morning, for example, I finished reading several stories online for an Osher class later today that I want to sit in on, researching lowlights for my silver/grey hair, catching up on several friends via their Facebook, looking a website sent by a friend, emailing that friend to see if she can come for a visit . . .  One interesting thing leading to another.  Now that I've been awake for a while, I'm beginning to think I should have tried harder to go back to sleep.  Oh well.  I'm headed to the swimming pool for a few laps before work - - that should wake me up.

Music and friends

I went to a concert last night with an old friend who I've known since the late 70's.  She and I are both music lovers and we agreed that the concert - - a variety of songs sung by two young people who have studied music and are now teaching - - was one of the best we'd ever been to.  Afterwards, we shared a meal at a local place - - an old favorite of both of us.  What a treat to have known my friend for so long.  She and I laugh a lot.  Our visits, although in frequent, are usually kept on a very light note, even when we're talking about something serious, if that makes sense.  She's much older than I and I wonder if her advanced age helps her to keep most everything in a humorous perspective.  She is, in her words, a 'confirmed agnostic' and I am a confirmed (literally in the Episcopalian sense) Christian.  I told her that "confirmed" and "agnostic" probably are mutually exclusive terms - - she laughed.  I heard recently that everyone has a 'god' even if they say they don't believe in God, as in what they worship - - could be material things, could be the reverance of nature, etc.  I wonder what my friend would describe as her 'god' or if she would say she doesn't hold anything in that way.  I'll have to ask her next time I see her.  She chides me because I don't call her often enough - - not in a way that makes me feel guilty, but in a way that conveys her interest in cultivating our friendship.  I'm the same age as her daughter and yet she doesn't treat me in a maternal way.  I have always considered her a mentor, professionally for our time together serving on a volunteer board, and personally for her fine example of a long and wonderful marriage to her now deceased husband.  One time I called her years ago to talk about our volunteer board work and asked her if I was calling at a good time - - she replied that she and her husband were having wild sex on the kitchen floor.  I laughed because I figured she was joking and yet I also thought how very possible that might be, given how close she and her husband were.  Years ago, when I was a young working mother, I went to my friend in her role as therapist for some talk therapy.  It was a huge help.  Now that she's much older and somewhat hard of hearing she's given up professional therapist work, and yet when I asked her if I could ever come to talk with her, with her therapist hat on, like in the dead of winter when my SAD is at its worst, she said absolutely yes, please come and talk, and don't worry that its any imposition at all.  I hope I'll remember that when my SAD has colored my thinking and acting so that I am so stuck in a rut of gloom.  It's June now and all that seems so distant and unlikely, now that I am getting out in the sun and the days of daylight are longer.  As the years go by, and I get more and more used to myself, I hope I'll work out some plans, like talking to my friend, to help myself.  Meanwhile, I'm grateful for friends and especially for this good friend with whom I spent a most delightful evening.

angels among us

Yesterday, a woman visited my office.  After a long and very fascinating (for me) visit, she said she thought God had put me in her life.  Wow.  I was stunned, honored, and totally blown away.  Mostly because I was thinking the same thing about her.  Thankfully, my days are full of such angels, if only I'm awake to them.