SUMMER BLOOMS

 Do you know someone who has friendships that go back to their early childhood? I mean the kind of friendship that is more than just sending holiday cards once a year?

I once taught with someone who married her next-door neighbor, someone she had known since they were both toddlers. When I knew her, they both were in their 50s, still married, and enjoying life together. I know others who have kept friendships alive since school days by meeting for museum visits, long weekends of quilting, or going to spring training. To me, maintaining long friendships is a marvelous ability to cultivate in a lifetime. And not always easy to do.

Before the pandemic, when we used to meet in person frequently, we followed the rules of being friends: looking past our quirks because we liked being with the person. The pandemic shut down meeting in person for most of us. Zoom offered a different window into keeping friendships alive, but it didn't give us a solid enough connection to help us overlook those quirks and irritations that surface between friends.

Now that the restrictions for vaccinated people have been lifted, friends and I attempt to meet. Two longtime friends, both artists and writers, who I have known since before my son was born, met for lunch for only the second time since June. In the rush of getting back to activities, we had had a hard time finding time to get together. We grew a little irritated at not being able to find a good day. Finally, this week we walked into the patio of a restaurant and laughed when we saw each other. We were all wearing similar blue patterned outfits, two of us had hats, we all had flat-heeled shoes, and, most of all, we were all glad to see each other again. We talked of books we were reading, Netflix shows, gardening, children, grandchildren, promising adventures we could plan, and we reached out past those little quirks that we all have that we know don't really matter because the person next to us is more important than any little differences that might come up in a long time friendship. Most of all, we remembered what it means to have good friends.