reunited feels so good

i experienced a reunion of sorts recently with a bunch of girls i once worked with, and by once i mean like 250 days a year for eons.  they were like earth incarnate each and every one of them.  i love one quality in particular my old friends possess, a sense of being utterly natural and of the earth while at the same time being imbued with a certain sophisticated, adult sensibility that is peculiar to mommys and large families and survivors and girly-girls who are lovers to the core. 

a friend of mine has been doing stand up comedy.  she is a natural.  our friendship has perhaps deteriorated recently as she is friends with my soon-to-be ex-wife but i got nothing but fondness for her so when she announced her performance at the ice house in pasadena i knew i would attend.  and in some way i knew i would be seeing a bunch of these former friends from that place i toiled in.  i have to tell you about them but i will invert this pyramid and tell you we all ran into each other there and we had drinks and watched our friend perform and hung out a bit afterwards, and a couple of days later i wrote them a group note on facebook because though we do not much interact on fb we are friends there.  so this was the note i sent them.

dear ladies of water,
i didn't know how much i missed you and many others from my past life hocking bottled water in the name of all that is healthy and youthful until this past weekend. what a joy to see you all and have some time to chat. life has all these twists and turns but i have thought of you guys several times since saturday night and so i thought i would just send a group message to say i absolutely adore you, i think of you every so often and always fondly, and i hope whenever we see each other we do as we did on saturday, just pick up where we left off, laughing and ranting and drinking and grooving and talking and smoking and going on and on and all that raging against the dying of the light. hopefully lilly will keep gigging her comedy thing and she will cause us more opportunities, (try to hit my weekend lj,) but if not you girls are still #1 with me and i wish you all the best. thank you for making my month. (terry, let's do lunch one day soon. let me know when?)
ciao bellas.

the note was from my heart.  i miss these girls and so many others.  i miss that mentor i had.  i miss the cuban girl, the classy one who made wealthy girls seem like cretins.  i missed the filipino lady i said hi to more mornings than you can count.  i missed the tall, fun-loving guy who had big plans to escape to virginia but his real escape was from the responsibility of real friendship.  i miss the girl who taught me a handful of phrases in farsi.  i miss big john.  i miss the girl who would cry when she spoke of her daughter.  i miss the gay man who shared my political perspective.  i miss the black girls and all their references, which kept me on my toes.  i miss the tough guy who cried.  i even miss the small people, the ones who created strife or assumed too much.  i miss the ones who flirted with me and the others who tenderly ensured i would never cross a line from devotion to theirs.  i miss the kids who respected my words and asked my advice.  i miss the french guy who helped me learn an important lesson.  i miss my friends the monsters from east los with their homogenous lingo, their humble perspective and their incessant need for altered states. 

of these girls i made a point of catching up with my friend terry, who is 74 but really 24, (still.)  her free spirit and liveliness is beyond most girls one-quarter her age.  she is such a treat to be around and i am already trying to see her again soon. 

the comedienne was also an unexpected delight.  i used to try to help her work out her act but then when the chasm of divorce hit my family she landed across the divide and when i wasn't looking she went on stage and did it.  she became the "hood mom," and the people could be heard guffawing on so many youtube videos it was amazing.  she was always funny but now she is polished funny, with structure and purpose. 

it was great to see the girl from the nice team.  we were co-captains once and i guess she has carried the mantle on without me.  spurn the sea of mean, good girl.  spurn it.

there were others, others i had not shared so much with but with whom i was still utterly familiar.  we practiced warmth on this night.  we took a photograph.  we clinked glasses and laughed and talked and sang into the early morning.  (mea culpa neighbors-i apologize for being so youthful.)

it is ironic how surprised i am at the experiences of age.  i might have learned...  these moments keep happening to me, moments when i experience the joy of reminiscence or nostalgia or what the portuguese call; saudades, moments unknown by the younger me who reveled in the new, physical, colorful, blazing characteristics of life, moments which are born atop those previous times and memories because they are of nuance and subtlety, the tricks and subterfuge of memory and the certainty of sense and sensibility and feeling.  yeah man, the body deteriorates slowly and over time.  this used to worry me because i did not see myself staying interested in large swathes of life into mine middle age but alas here i am and i  am finding it, the interest and the interesting, the moments of joy and the moments of new, that which i can savor and ponder and on which i can be sustained.