2009 surprises

2009 marked 40 years since my high school graduation.  I'd never given any high school business a thought.  I didn't have many friends from those days.  I was one of those alienated youth in the late 60s.  Didn't belong to any clubs, choirs, or other groups.  My friends tolerated me for some reason, but I'm still not sure why.  For some reason, perhaps the anniversary of Woodstock, or just finally thinking about what happened through all those years, I considered checking to see if Kalamazoo Central High was going to put on a reunion.  I clicked on classmates.com to see if there was any word.  I wasn't so interested that I would pay to look very deeply, but for free... I noticed that someone looked familiar on the site.  It looked like one of the few friends I had, Steve, but it said his name was different.  "I'll be damned if that isn't Steve".  Crazy.  Oh, well.  There was a notice that someone had looked for me, too.  Did I know this person?  Hmm. Email is wonderful.  No harm in sending a comment along.  Click...

Wow.  This person was living in San Francisco and had been for nearly 30 years.  She had left Michigan about the same time I had.  She sounded interesting.  Enjoyed lots of the same things I do.  Rats.  If I had known earlier, we could have maybe gotten to know each other better.  As it stood, I could not remember this woman to save my life.  The only person I had had any contact with from 1969 who might possibly know her was my first love, Bruce.  We had only emailed a few times in the last 10 years, but I had to know if he knew her.  Email.  "Of course you know her. She was in drama club. She was always around. She hung out with Richard and everyone in drama".  Well, I didn't hang out with the drama gang.  I knew them through Richard (my brother) and Bruce, I guess.  My other few friends were sort of fringe drama people, too.  Lighting and props, mostly.  I had nothing to do with it other than watch them or hang out after the shows and party.  Nothing clicked in my memory. 

She wrote back to say she was getting ready to leave SF and move back to Michigan and live on a farm, grow organic produce, and be closer to her family.  She had plans to go to British Columbia for a workshop and thought she might come through Portland on her way home. Would I like to get together?  I'm still wracking my brain to try to remember who she is.  "Sure.  Drop in.  We can have lunch." 

I don't have any yearbooks.  I threw away everything back then.  Why hang on to a past that you felt was miserable at the time?  Dang. Sure wish I had them now.  I guess I'll just know her when I see her.  She wrote back and let me know when she'd planned to get here.  I tried to put a face to her, but she had nothing available on Google.  Exasperating when people want to maintain their privacy. I wasn't coming up with anything.

She called to say she was on her way and had a GPS in the rental car, so she'd just come to the house.  I sure hope I know her.  She's mentioned lots of people I know, so there has to be a connection.  The car pulls up and she comes up to the door.  She looks vaguely familiar.  We start talking.  She's very warm and friendly.  Funny, too.  Finally I have to ask, "Did we ever have any classes together?"  Nope.  I guess it was just the connection from one person through another that bound us.  It was indirect.  But now that she had arrived in my life I was so disappointed that she was going to be far away.  I wanted to know her better.  I wanted her to be my friend.

We went to lunch.  We talked.  I found out that it really was Steve on the classmates page, but now he's not Steve, but she had his email address.  I asked her to send him mine so he could write me if he wanted to.  We got home and hit the computer.  Within minutes Steve had responded.  I was so happy to hear from him!  So much to learn about his life.  He then got me the email address of another friend from the old days.  Hurray!  These are friends I have some history with.  We struggled through some adolescent crap together. She left.  Went back to SF to pack up and move back to Michigan. 

I found my friend that Steve had told me of.  She was living in Denver, now.  Excellent.  I wrote her, we exchanged phone numbers.  Decided I might as well go visit her.  Why not?  Life is too short to leave some chapters unread.  We spent a long weekend together.  I got to see where she lives, what she does on a regular day- what music she listens to, what she reads, what her pets are like.  We spent evenings listening to music, drinking nice wine, eating her wonderful cooking.  She was wise enough to keep her yearbooks.  We looked through them and I realized how many of those people I remembered fondly.  Maybe I wasn't as alienated as I thought I was.  I wondered how life had changed/formed these people.  Where are they now? I wondered if I would appreciate getting to know any of them.

The weekend ended with a big snow storm, but I made it back to Portland and my current life. I love it here.  I feel this is where I belong.  Now I want my friends to come and see me.  See how I've turned out.  See what I do on a regular day.  That's an invitation.