We Were Born Before the Wind

A great day is when a friend from the very distant past appears in New York City and wanders onto our busy sidewalks, making time to see me!  It gets even better when that friend seems to come out of a time warp and conversations pick up where they last left off even if that was over 28 years ago.  

Another former music retail alumni via Wherehouse and Leopold Records.  Whereas he went on to Amoeba and eventually Los Angeles, I went on to Virgin and then New York. He moved along with a group of our old friends but somehow I found myself separated from that herd.  In reality we were all steering our own ships its just that those folks somehow ended up in the same dock. 

I've always been super fuzzy on certain areas of my past especially the parts where people go away.  But in this case whatever messy loose ends I had left, time took care of or at least that's what I'm telling myself.  The truth is that I lost out on years of knowing some of the most interesting people for reasons I can't quite comprehend.  I've always been this way is about the closest I come to a real excuse.

Could I have done it all differently and kept my compadres close?  I'll really never know now.  To consider it is just to make more misery for myself.  I don't know about you but we're all stocked up on regret over here. I had a wonderful time visiting and catching up.  In the end we turned out just fine and no casualties.  This was before MySpace, Facebook and Instagram.  When people dropped out of your life, you just waited for them to call....on the telephone.  So he and I took a walk, we had to go back and consider all the hows and whys without the aid of pictures, timeline and visual memories.  This made me recall one of the best things about my buddy.  Our friendship never got too caught up in present time but thrived more in the mystic.  You know where all the really interesting topics live.

After a jaunt through Central Park and more great conversation, I left my friend yet again.  People come and go in our lives but if we really understood the quality of those experiences and how they shape us, how they are part of who we become I'm not sure we'd handle them quite the same. 

After a full day of socializing, this girl did what any self respecting introvert would do and that was to hole up alone with a take out burger and fries.  The universe thankfully gives us many chances to continue learning and practice gratitude.