Warm, sunny day. It feels like the first of summer’s long day of fussing in the garden and making jam from the strawberries which were picked yesterday. Barn swallows fly west to roost in the trees near the estuary in the evening. and crickets make their voices heard in the dark.
Suzie is here to visit and she is good company. We enjoy much of the same things: berry picking, napping, playing with young Arthur and helping out with the dishes. Truly a joy to have her around being an easy low impact guest. Having one old friend makes me hungry for more. So on some of my dog walks I take the opportunity to call some others.
A friend from high school lost his wife to cancer and I called him the day after mother’s day to see how he was doing. Another friends from Sitka has had his own problems and I called to check in with him to see if he was still playing in various bands. Both conversations were wonderful in their own way: trading news and yes, sometimes complaining about the ravages of old age, but mostly laughing about the strange times we live in now. These are the lucky reminiscences, in that we are still alive and strong enough to still being able to laugh about our health and prospects for the future. Some of my reminiscences are much more one sided, and more meloncholy.
There are some old friends I miss everyday, and they have gone so far out of reach that there can never be new news about them. No amount of gossip can bring them into better focus. I’ve been lucky that many of my friends who have gone on were hard working and creative people that left a fine record of themselves so that they have allowed their friends to keep learning new things, or feeling the old things freshly as if they had just come from wherever they are for a nice long visit. So I spend a part of each day reading their books or listening to recordings they made in life that lets me feel just what it was about them that made me love them in the way I did; funny people, smart and passionate about their subjects. How lucky and rich they made my life. Tonight we will make Angelfood cake with fresh strawberries to remember one of them in particular.
Poppies that look like fried eggs, sunny side up.
This afternoon, Finn and Emily brought their two boys over. Jan and Arthur played in the garden repairing the damage Dot had done by grazing in the carrots. I held baby Walter and shuffled him around in my arms. The women wore floppy sun hats and I squinted behind my old fishing cap. Just yesterday Jan and I gave our salmon fishing gear to the skipper of the Western Flyer and all day I was thinking of the days I used to fish with friends. We acknowledged how lucky we have been and how we hoped we have been able to extend our luck for at least a few more years. The afternoon had that loopy feeling of a Christmas day. Our tools and toys were scattered about because we didn’t want the feeling to end: Jan in her sun hat noodling around with her cane and Arthur who is a precocious two year old sometimes sat with her in her wheel chair, bending down to pull weeds out of flower boxes, laughing and talking to himself in that never ending narrative his life has become. “Grandpa, where is your Da Da?” “Your brother Walter is named after my father… so I suppose he is right there with your mom.” I told him.
No matter our health, no matter our circumstances we are lucky to be alive and to still be able to taste the sweetness of our friendships and the fresh strawberries.
Here is an old poem.
