The afternoon for once is warm enough that I can sit outside for a bit. I pour myself a glass of white wine, sink into a chair on the front porch, and begin reading a new book. Tolstoy. It reads easy, but not quite with the same "maturity" of say, a Dickens. But I like the easy...
I don't get far into the book before I drift. And I find myself thinking, more and more actually, about old friends and people who I shared life with.
A month or so ago I had called up a very good old friend Jack. I had for a long time wondered how he was, since we hadn't connected for well, an awful lot of years. I had texted him earlier to break the ice and he said he would happily talk over the phone some time.
So I called after work one day.
We talked and I could tell it was Jack... the inflections, the same words, same thoughts, same feelings about life. I'll do it again, because the old connections came back.
Gail has been trying to talk to us (me?) lately. I'd known Gail and Walter from way, way back... young people times. At first they were "just" our leaders, but then we came to be friends. Walter died some time ago, but Gail keeps on going. I'll make that call too some day. Just to say hi and wonder how life is.
The memories bite a bit. Before going inside I wondered why now I was beginning to think of the old friends. Maybe it has something to do with being sixty three.
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