Monday, May 7, 2012

Monday May 7th ~ 2012

Well April shot by and my 5722 mile 3 1/2 week east coast teaching tour was excellent. I had a blast with my friend Gail Moore at Bead Fest Spring, I had way to many laughs in South Carolina with Heidi at the Beaded Frog and my time in Cleveland with the Northeast Ohio Metal Clay Guild and my friend Gail Lannum was way to much fun and way to short.

Even though these last weeks traveling have been long their have been many highlights. The best one for me is that, through Face Book, I have gotten back in contact with my childhood best friend. You could not ask for two people are that are more different, then or now. Even back then our parents really could not understand what it was in the other that we each liked so much. But our friendship was very close for close to a decade.
A picture my father caught of us in TN.
We both had a love of tennis and would play for hours at the local park and at the pool both of our families belonged to. I could get Connie so mad when I would play "tennis golf". Which would be me yelling "four" and hitting the ball well out of bounds and making her run after it. We were both Master Lego Builders and could spend hours creating cities, buildings, cars, people and just weird contraptions! The thing that we shared most was our enjoyment of long walks, especially after rain storms. We would journey for hours, jumping in puddles and scouring through the damp woods.

What we really shared was simply a love of quiet. We could spend hours in each others company not saying anything of consequence. Our walks were usually in quiet reverence, enjoying the peace that was around us. Looking back, we each simply accepted the other exactly as we were, made no demands and were the others solace and strength in many respects.

This image totally sums up our friendship. We were in Gatlinburg TN on a family vacation. We had finished playing around on the tennis court and were hanging out and looking at the mountains. I simply have no excuse or explanation for the outfit, especially the socks.

We got separated in 4th grade due to each of our older sisters going into Jr. High School. The Jr. High was over crowded and going through an expansion so they instituted a year-round policy. The student population was divided into 4 "tracks" and rotated on a 12 week cycle. This meant that at any given time, 1/4 of the students were on a 3 week break. It would work out like this; go to school 9 weeks get 3 weeks off. Connie's older sister was put on Green Track and my older sister was put on Red Track and so we would go weeks without really seeing each other during the days.

It got worse in when we both got to Jr. Hi as we each developed other friends to fill the void our separation caused. By the time we hit high school we were simply very good acquaintances. We were always nice and very friendly to each other but that closeness had gone. During the years of Jr & Sr High we were each tackling our own inner teen angst ridden turmoils and that also caused a distance that was not broach-able.

About two weeks ago we got together, drank a bottle of wine and actually talked about why we drifted apart. We each turned inward due to the distance and we each built a wall to keep people at bay. Neither would let anyone too close for fear of the assumed loss due to the passage of time. It was not until I sat on her back porch, sharing our stories, hearing her voice again, hearing her laugh did I realize that I missed my childhood friend and I was grateful for her reaching out and clicking on the "friend" button.

We are still just as different and I would assume that not many would understand the connection. If I had to look to closely I might not either. But I have trust the feelings that I had as a 5 year old and know that we share something that is beyond words, beyond explanation and accept the other exactly as we are.. no demands, just enjoying the moment and perhaps the quiet!