Somehow today we had six different sets of friends from way back when show up at church, people who’d moved away that we hadn’t expected to get to see again–and they all picked today to be back. Synchronicity is great fun.
The trio of little boys looked at me in semi-disbelief when I told them I’d known their daddy when he was a teenager. Their daddy? A teenager? Nonpsychodegradeable. Lady, are you SURE?
One old friend, after we threw our arms around each other, asked after the old neighborhood and specifically about her favorite old neighbor across the street. I told her I’d run into Jane at Stitches, that she was a knitter now and that we’d done a doubletake at running into each other at a knitting convention of all places. Jane had had no idea that I knit, much less anything about my writing a knitting book. She simply knew me from my taking walks around the neighborhood and our having children the same ages.
And then Jane’s old neighbor asked, in seriousness, about my health. I took a deep breath, and then: I basically told her how bad it had been. Not many details, just enough to be honest. Lupus with autonomic neuropathy is a bear–but the chemo has it mostly in remission, along with the Crohn’s.
I could only open up because it’s okay now, I really am doing so well now, and have been for some time; she was very gratified to hear that.
And then there was K there, visiting too. K… Several years ago, I surprised her with a knitted lace scarf, a nice one–and her reaction had stunned me. She’d held it, burst into tears, and rushed away from me and disappeared, while I was standing there going, What on earth…what just happened here? I don’t get this at all.
From what I was able to surmise, she took it as something bequeathed, while I wanted to quote Monty Python: “I’m not dead yet!”
Today, she was totally cheerful and very glad to see me and no more was said. She lives in a cold climate now: and I happen to know she has a nice wide, warm scarf for it. I will go look her up in ten years and ask her if it needs any moth holes repaired. I am not admitting to any inner snarkiness at that thought.
Vera, who has children around my age, didn’t recognize me at all as I went up to her, exclaiming in delight. I reminded her of the time there’d been a ward Christmas party just before she and her husband had moved away, and someone had ratted me out and everybody had sung Happy Birthday. Vera had poked an elbow in my side, demanding, “And how old are you now? Thirty-nine and holding?!”
I’d looked at her with a wry smile and answered, “Yeah: for about six hours now.”
We shared a good laugh all over again at the memory. That had been ten years ago, and she allowed as how she had a few gray hairs now herself. Hey. Happens to the best of us, if we’re lucky. C’est la Vera-t’e.
Re the photo: the newest knitting, after two Casbah shawls in dark Periwinkle, needed to be not-blue. Knit long and prosper.
(And if you’re counting, no, that’s not all six sets of old friends, but this post is long enough.)
