Then

Click on the collage to enlarge it.

Some people are going to squint at the photos - the ones of me in my early twenties- and go "OMG! Is that you?!"

Please don't do that in front of me.

Thanks.

Old Friends Weekend

Last weekend I reunited with two friends; one I've known since 1977, the other since 1992.

Let's start with the first one. Look at that number again, the one with the sevens in it. To state the obvious, that was a long time ago. No personal computers. Eight dollar concert tickets. Seventeen year old me.

Seeing friends from decades ago activates a dredging process. Once in a while something upleasant is exhumed. Something stupid that you forgot for a reason.
And then there's the really random things you remember that you had forgotten for 30 years but can summon again in an instant. "Yes, I remember her! The one who used to smoke pot for her menstrual cramps, right?" There's a lot of remembering how much fun you used to have.

In a post from 2009 I briefly described how I met Mike, but the memory has come back more vividly so here it is: I met Mike in May of 1977, at Crandon Park beach in Miami. At night. The beach AT NIGHT. Going to the beach AT NIGHT, in all its primordial, mystical, moonlit, warm-sand wonderfulness was a frequent pastime back then. Wistful sigh. If I remember right, I was there with my friend David M. I was...well, er...uninhibited (there we go) and walked up to a picnic table four guys were sitting on.I wanted to see if they had anything good to, er, talk about. Yeah. Talk about.

In my heart I also wanted to have an inappropriate encounter with an inappropriate man (perhaps that renders the encounter appropriate, but whatever). I fancied myself a wild and crazy girl; one who was eager to swim uncharted waters.

A roadie for a rock band would have fit the bill nicely. A long-haired, tattooed, not-Jewish, blue-collar worker would have sufficed too. Anything could have happened that night as I approached that table of men on the dark, desolate beach.

One of the men looked me in the eye.

and...

that's how I met Mike. Nice, intelligent, sensible Jewish Mike, who was home from MIT for the summer.

I mean, really.

Flash forward Thirty five years. Mike is married and has a successful career as a research physicist. He's still nice, intelligent, and sensible. I'm much more sensible and responsible than I was back then. Life is not as much fun now. Just being honest. It's not. But it was fun to see Mike again. We'd last seen each other in Denver around 1992, so we weren't jumping across quite so many decades, but still. It had been a long time.

I'm sometimes feel that I have a tenuous hold on life; like I have a fluctuating inventory of family and friends (yeah I know, boo hoo). Being connected with old friends like Mike and Nanice makes me feel more grounded. Big bonus that the chemistry with both was unchanged from the old days.

I really, really want to go to the beach at night.

Back then it was pure joy. Now it's a need.

Ok, here's exactly what I want: I want to be on the coast of Iceland at night in winter, with a cold wind blowing and ice near the shore. I want an insane display of northern lights; swift-flying swirls of manic electric green.

Let's throw in a bonfire and a Scandinavian husband and I'll be all set.