old friends

I talked with an old friend today.  We haven’t actually talked to each other in about eighteen years, but last year or so we reconnected through…facebook.  For all that I hate about facebook, I can’t help but be amazed and a little grateful for the fact that I have found dozens, literally, of long lost friends through it.

While my friend and I haven’t talked, we have emailed each other and caught up as much as one can.  Today though, for the first time in too many years, I heard his voice and it was..I can’t explain it…it was healing.  I have moved too many times to count in my life, and have lost touch with more people than I care to admit.  Today was an unexpected gift.

What was most lovely about the our conversation was that it was never awkward.  It could have been. I wasn’t necessarily expecting it to be. But by the same token, I was surprised to find it so easy. And now, a few hours later, I am overcome with heartbreaking gratitude that I do not understand and cannot explain. I have felt that parts of me have been scattered around this globe; I have drifted, rather than rooted.  There are moments, like this call, which still me, as if the wind has stopped and for a moment I could be held in one place.

My own memory is not very clear and accurate.  Often I have found it easier to forget; the constant leaving wore heavy; the cost of it evident in  unclear pictures and poor recall. I forget that others haven’t lived this way.  And I am grateful for that.  Today I live differently. It has taken me awhile to come to this place.  Knowing nothing can be held, expecting everything  to change in an instant, I make my home in the present moment. Give it now, listen well; hold and touch and smell all that is with you in this single frame of an instant.  There is no memory or judgement there.

Today a single phone call from an old friend  gave me comfort.  The world is at once a small and  immense place and though I may be scattered across it I am held together by the graciousness of others.