My friend comes to visit. We have not seen each other, face to face like this, for over two years she estimates. We have not spoken together on the phone for over a year. But our friendship spans close to three decades now and the ties, the links that connect us have not been severed. Loosened maybe, by times and circumstances and distances, but not undone.
My friend belongs most significantly to a time in my life that I’ve been revisiting lately with the greatest affection. I had a great, local job, at a community centre, working mostly with women who were mostly mothers of young children. Many were referred to as “stay at home mothers”. As opposed to the working mothers, who were away from home and earning money for their labours.
It was a challenging, youthful, and passionate time and I learned much, including, eventually, and by the grim and everyday realities, that it wasn’t in fact true that all women are sisters. It was a painful gaining of knowledge.
But lots of women were sisters. And we had fun. We ate together, drank together, visited together, marketed together, reared our children together, went to movies together, read books together, watched television together, went to concerts together, walked together, drank coffee together. And talked together. The conversations, the ideas, the discussions, the arguments and the theories never ended. They were just stalled briefly, and added to, until next we gathered in one place.
It was lively and there was often much loud and long laughter.
We took care of each other too. We knew each other’s lives so well that we could be there or help out or listen or cheer during another’s life moments. A wisdom tooth out, a husband reappearing, a house moving, a birth, an illness, an unwanted pregnancy, a job application, a new car, a holiday, a financial crisis, an issue at school, a parent dying, a car accident, an essay to write, a party to go to.
There was an every day-ness – or every second day – to our friendships. We saw each other so much and so often and information, to and about each other, was fluid
Oh, there were men too.
And it was the best of times. Until it began to change and fade and we all began to move on to the next thing and time became more crowded by other things and other people and other needs. New jobs, new relationships. University, babies, villages. Age. Some friendships, thought to be so precious and infinite, disappeared in a puff of smoke.
But we didn’t all lose each other. We just had to remake the connections, make a bit more effort, change the conversations. When we met or spoke there was a need for a big catch up. Not of days, but of events, thoughts, milestones, feelings, families, friends. The other.
My friend walks into my house and we begin talking. She has a rose with her, one she’s especially picked from the bush that bears my daughter’s name. I have a gift for her from New York City, the place she always knew I wanted most to go.
My friend walks into my house and she’s the one who taught me that champagne was for every day, who caught me when I fell, who gave fantastic dinner parties, who laughed until she wept, who knew what to do with flowers and workmen holding up the traffic, who bathed her children every single night come what may, who cared what happened next, who called things for what they were and knew the best presents for everybody, who scrunched her face and asked me mate, do you ever read just for fun?, who went back to school 16 years later, who wrote a thesis, who always left the welcome mat out, who travelled the world again and again, who nursed her dying parents, who loved to gossip, who learned to drive way later than the rest of us, who celebrated everything with the greatest of gusto.
My friend walks into my house. She brings her passion, her wisdom, her integrity and her fun. There is so much to say, so many questions, so many answers, so much news, so many views. The conversation has to cease at some point, but it hasn’t ended by a long shot.
My friend walks into my house. And I’m so very grateful that she does.
RosieL
endgame 