Old friends

Old friends, old friends sat on their park bench like bookends. You know that Simon and Garfunkel song? It gets kind of weird and discordant in the middle, but I like the images of old men on a bench, watching the world go by. Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly?

Today I went to a party at the house of my oldest friend (oldest as in time I’ve known her, not her age). You know how there are some people in your life, no matter how long it’s been since you saw them, you can still pick right up where you left off as though no time has passed? Our friendship is like that.

We met in the second grade after my family moved into the house where my parents still live, and my new friend lived only two blocks away. I used to cross the creek behind our house by myself, and cut through the neighbor’s yard—with permission, of course—to go to play at her house. Her family had a frisky black poodle who would beg to play fetch for hours. I babysat her younger brother a few times, and I think she watched my sister once or twice. We worked on Girl Scout badges together. I went to the beach with her family, and she went skiing with mine. On summer evenings in our adolescent years, I would call her most nights after dinner to go for a walk through the neighborhood above us, where we would stroll up the hill past massive homes with lawn sprinklers spraying cool mist.

When we were in fifth grade and tired of the afternoon program at the elementary school, our mothers decided we were responsible enough to come home alone after school, if we were together. So on alternate days, we would ride the bus to her house and then to my house. Her home was clean and peaceful and silent in the afternoons. I remember the pungent, yeasty smell of their kitchen bread drawer, which seemed strange and wondrous to me—bread at my house was kept on top of the refrigerator in plain sight. We would eat whole wheat bread and thickly spread raspberry jam, and do our homework or play with the clothespin dolls we made outfits for from fabric scraps.

In the summer, we made our younger siblings perform in plays that we wrote and directed and designed the costumes for. We would spend hours in my basement, rehearsing and planning and trying to convince the younger ones to go along with everything. Somewhere, I still have a cassette tape with a radio play that we produced; it was about a princess, of course, and our voices sound childlike and precocious over the hiss from the microphone. We decided that my sister and her brother would get married, and then we would be related. Unfortunately, neither sibling was as excited about that plan as we were. They’re still not.

Later, she did not drive and I did not have a car, so we rode the school bus together all through high school. I remember many mornings falling asleep shoulder to shoulder in the pre-dawn gray, hunched over our bulging backpacks in our laps, me with my viola case between my knees. The worst was on rainy days, when we had to squish together on the crowded bus, wet coat pressed against wet coat on the damp green vinyl, the windows fogged with the breath of fifty groggy students, the floor slick and gray from soaked shoes.

Our families are friends, which probably helps us to stay in contact. (I am not in contact with anyone else from school. I wonder from time to time how some of my old classmates are doing, but it doesn’t trouble me enough to find out.) Our parents have dinner every few months. Our mothers talk on the phone, and update us on one another’s activities. Her dad and my dad play their guitars together for fun, and even go to concerts (by which I do not mean screaming mobs and mosh pits and overpriced T-shirts—I mean two guys with guitars and microphones at a church multi-purpose room). So I generally know where she is and what she’s doing.

Still, it was nice to see her in person. I can’t remember the last time I saw her, actually. But when we sit and talk together in her backyard in the heat of a July evening, it feels like no time has passed.

Seeing my friend makes me realize anew that I am lonely. A little lonely, I mean. I have my family nearby, and I see people and talk to others on the phone, but I don’t really have any close friends here in town. There’s no one I can call here when I need to vent about something. My college friends, because we have taken different paths and live in different places, have inevitably drifted away, although we still have the bond of common experience and genuine affection. I’m not surprised by the drifting away, but I miss the connection of real friends. I miss having people I can call for spontaneous meals or movies. Does this make me sound pathetic? I’m afraid so.

I was talking to my counselor about this last week, because he’s been encouraging me to get out more. But the thing is, I do get out, or I try to. I stretch myself beyond my level of comfort nearly every week. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even leave the house when I know I will have to talk to strangers, or go somewhere I’ve never been before. Still, I am involved in activities like the community orchestra I play with, where I make myself go to practice every week and usually enjoy it once I’m there; and I have taken several classes through the community college, but I just don’t seem to make friends—at least not within my peer group, and not in as short a time as a weekly class with ten sessions. It takes me a while to warm up to people. And right now, I don’t even have a job to go to, where there would at least be some work friends to have lunch with or talk to about my day.

I have met some very nice people in the orchestra, but they are older and have families and other commitments, and it’s just not the same. And yes, I’ve tried online dating, but I found it very impersonal and weird. Either I made a snap judgment about whoever I was matched up with (and believe me, some of them were for good reason—like the guy who listed “tattoos” first on his list of things he couldn’t live without; I’m sure he is perfect for someone, but that someone is not me); or the person I was matched up with made a presumably hasty judgment about me, based on my profile picture or one of my statements. After a few months of this, I decided that: a) I couldn’t afford it anymore since I’m unemployed; and b) it wasn’t really helping me to make connections with anyone. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d still like to meet someone the way people used to. Whatever that was.

As I said to my counselor, I don’t know where my peers are! I am not going to hang out in bars, and I am not involved in a church, and those are the only groups I see with people my age, other than the young married parents who are friends with other young married parents. I’m not quite at the point where I want to join a “singles” group, although I’m not ruling it out yet. So where does that leave me? If you live in Portland and have a group of friends who could use a quiet, wry addition who enjoys movies and good cheap dining and has a station wagon that would hold several people, think of me for your next event.

I’m afraid this has taken a rather melancholy turn. I didn’t intend it. I read in Newsweek recently that mental health professionals are recommending blogging to their patients as a form of therapy. Because blogging has a built-in audience, or so we believe when we do it, we get that sympathetic ear we are really looking for, that helps us feel better about our problems. That’s what sets blogging apart from keeping a journal or diary, which is also something therapists recommend, but you know that no one is going to see the journal, and you don’t get the same psychological benefit from it. I guess what I’m getting at is, tonight’s entry has been therapeutic for me, because my (presumably) sympathetic audience is out there reading and nodding your heads. So thank you, dear readers.