(no subject)
I said something recently about how my relations with people who knew me years ago are different than how I am with people I've met in the last ten or fifteen years. (It's #3 on that page.) Last night I went to a poetry reading where the featured poet was a college friend of mine I hadn't seen since 1989.
I haven't talked to her much since then. We've kept in vague sporadic touch, but she is not much with computers and I never had her phone number. I knew she'd had a son and gotten divorced and that her marriage was bad, and that she got advanced degrees at prestigious schools (doctorate at Harvard!), but that was about it. I didn't even know she'd moved back to her home town and wasn't in Boston anymore.
But it was like we'd seen each other a month or two ago, not like it'd been 21 years. Big hugs, near tears, more big hugs, and the poetry was incredible. Also had me near tears. Afterwards I took her back to her hotel after a few adventures in Navigating Chicago, and we talked for a couple of hours.
Well, really, I talked for a couple of hours. I did that a few months ago when the fisherman was here, I talked and talked and talked and I have no idea what I said but I couldn't stop. Last night was the same. I tried! I asked her about her son, and her family (I spent one mid-semester break at her house), and other stuff. But mostly I talked.
Those of you who've met me know that I can get wordy after a few drinks, but usually I sit and listen. I used to do that a lot in college too, watch and listen and think. I've related that to my writing, that observer thing. But somehow when I reconnect with people I haven't seen since before, I blather. I have so much to say, the words trip over each other trying to get out. It's compulsive.
There's a thought in there, about why it's different. I apologized for chewing her ear off and she said it was like old times. I don't remember being a wordy bitch in college, but maybe I was. I do remember realizing that the year in the UK and four years in New England had removed some of my openness, because I was always an outsider among people who sneered at differences. And this friend, this wonderful friend, had her reasons for being an outsider there too. But with each other, we didn't need to keep up any of the facades. We could be ourselves, our goofy silly loud selves, and it was such a relief to have that.
I don't know why I don't have that so much with the friends I've made since then. It's not like that with all of them, of course, but I hadn't realized before that there was a difference. When I did, I thought it was because I've spent so much time alone in the last five years and seeing someone from my past opened doors I'd forgotten I closed. Maybe, but I'm not so sure. I have a feeling I've grown a lot more reserved than I knew. It's peripheral to feeling kind of lost, like I don't know quite where I fit in or whether there is anywhere I fit in. That feeling feeds my loner tendencies and both are reinforced.
Some of it, of course, was catching up on two decades of life. But I tried so hard to stop talking, to listen instead, and the words just would not stop pouring out. So I am pondering.
I haven't talked to her much since then. We've kept in vague sporadic touch, but she is not much with computers and I never had her phone number. I knew she'd had a son and gotten divorced and that her marriage was bad, and that she got advanced degrees at prestigious schools (doctorate at Harvard!), but that was about it. I didn't even know she'd moved back to her home town and wasn't in Boston anymore.
But it was like we'd seen each other a month or two ago, not like it'd been 21 years. Big hugs, near tears, more big hugs, and the poetry was incredible. Also had me near tears. Afterwards I took her back to her hotel after a few adventures in Navigating Chicago, and we talked for a couple of hours.
Well, really, I talked for a couple of hours. I did that a few months ago when the fisherman was here, I talked and talked and talked and I have no idea what I said but I couldn't stop. Last night was the same. I tried! I asked her about her son, and her family (I spent one mid-semester break at her house), and other stuff. But mostly I talked.
Those of you who've met me know that I can get wordy after a few drinks, but usually I sit and listen. I used to do that a lot in college too, watch and listen and think. I've related that to my writing, that observer thing. But somehow when I reconnect with people I haven't seen since before, I blather. I have so much to say, the words trip over each other trying to get out. It's compulsive.
There's a thought in there, about why it's different. I apologized for chewing her ear off and she said it was like old times. I don't remember being a wordy bitch in college, but maybe I was. I do remember realizing that the year in the UK and four years in New England had removed some of my openness, because I was always an outsider among people who sneered at differences. And this friend, this wonderful friend, had her reasons for being an outsider there too. But with each other, we didn't need to keep up any of the facades. We could be ourselves, our goofy silly loud selves, and it was such a relief to have that.
I don't know why I don't have that so much with the friends I've made since then. It's not like that with all of them, of course, but I hadn't realized before that there was a difference. When I did, I thought it was because I've spent so much time alone in the last five years and seeing someone from my past opened doors I'd forgotten I closed. Maybe, but I'm not so sure. I have a feeling I've grown a lot more reserved than I knew. It's peripheral to feeling kind of lost, like I don't know quite where I fit in or whether there is anywhere I fit in. That feeling feeds my loner tendencies and both are reinforced.
Some of it, of course, was catching up on two decades of life. But I tried so hard to stop talking, to listen instead, and the words just would not stop pouring out. So I am pondering.