Reminiscence.

I saw an old friend yesterday.

Much has changed in her world and in mine. 

We’ve passed a far too many years from the days of “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel on a soapbox radio in a Brooklyn bar that served 25 cent beers to the underaged (and to us).   

Children grown and some married. Paths traveled or not. Circumspection begun and continued. And now some signs of aging in us both – though we feign denial based on magnesium supplements, or exercise or diet trends. The inescapable analysis of what if, and when. And the unquestionable desire to starve off some of that which equates to loss.  

Our days of driving in cars with boys, late night train rides to NYC clubs we smiled our way into, and all the risk taking of youth have been replaced by hatred of cold weather, the most sensible shoes, and talk of physicians, specifically those who give a damn in a medical world all too corporatized.

I know that the next high end-brunch at a white tablecloth restaurant on the water in Stamford may be more recitations of the same.  I only hope we can be that periodic buoy for one another that I know we have always been.

I have wandered widely this year:  I am finally understanding at a soul level what my grandmother meant when she sighed “But only I was ten years younger”.  I do not miss the fears of youth – the need to appear a certain way, or to be accepted as presented, but I do long for the fearless energy of a perspective based on the prospective. I have the quiet of wisdom based on the past.

Reminiscence is not only that West 4th Street Greenwich Village clothing store where I bought pink jeans at seventeen.