Too late in the morning to see the oystermen bringing in their haul so spent time lying in grass and writing in notebook - then a walk to SoNo's Caffeine coffee shop to meet old friend not seen for a decade or so. Humid and sunny but lovely in the cool cafe where we had a long visit. Today twenty people convened in Rowayton in a house overlooking Long Island Sound. We had not all been together for 25 years. We feasted, cried, hugged, read poems, reminisced, paid tribute, and placed our lost friend's ashes in the sand at the water's edge as the tide was coming in. A storm began to gather - within an hour the sea was roiling, the sky dark, torrents of rain fell. When it was over it was cool and windy, the tide had come in fully and washed away the sand - we bid her off to the sea she loved.
Thirty five years ago, five women in their late 20s and early 30s with some husbands and a bunch of young children lived in a small town near the water. Eighteen years ago two of those women moved to northern New Mexico. We kept in touch directly with the others (my friend) and indirectly (me). We were named recently, by one of those now middle-aged children, "the original Sex in the City". She added, "a small city, but nevertheless..."
In so many ways today I felt as if I'd tumbled into another dimension - experiencing a sort of wrinkle in time as three generations (a fourth on the way) ranging in age from 4 1/2 months to 84 years mingled. Friends not seen for 25 years picked up just where we'd left off. How does that happen? Photographs of earlier times adorned walls and the future seemed to slip into the space just as easily. The edges of who belonged to whom dissolved and I wondered if it was another reality - or dementia setting in. What I do know is that the woman we loved and lost was honored in the way she deserved to be honored and we all left much richer.
People write poems
when someone they love dies.
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