|
Engelhardt |
 |
|
GROW STRONGER
|
They find more in common
as each year passes by
|
of TheColumnists.com |
I’m probably
not the first person to disagree with him, but sorry, Thomas
Wolfe, sometimes you CAN go home again. At least metaphorically.
I thought about this recently as I returned from a four-day visit to a former college friend’s home on the Oregon coast. She had moved there a couple of years ago, and she invited a group of women who had shared senior moments (I’m talking senior year of college here) together at San Jose State University for a mini-reunion.
At first I came up with a hundred reasons why I wouldn’t be able to go. I was way too busy with writing projects and volunteer work. I couldn’t commit that far in advance because a wonderful acting opportunity might crop up. It might be too costly. I, I, I - iyiyii! Why was I coming up with all those negatives?
Perhaps it was fear of intimacy. Did I really want to spend four days with five other women I’ve seen at the most once a year for the last 45 years? Could be very traumatic. Could be awkward. Could be…..phenomenal.
In the end, I went. I convinced myself with the argument that “Hello??? You’re not getting any younger, Joanne. Who knows if you--or one of the others--will be around next year?” If nothing else, I long ago learned the lesson of not putting off things until it’s too late.
Naturally, it was an extraordinary voyage. In college, we six were selected, along with six others, for the senior honorary society because we were high achievers who also participated in a lot of college activities. The crème de la crème, so to speak, of San Jose State’s senior women. We’ve lost touch with a couple of those who were in our group; we lost one way too early to cancer, and a few others had commitments and couldn’t make the trip.
Between us we have countless children, grandchildren, divorces, losses, accomplishments, heartaches, experiences. How do you cram all of that into four days?
The answer is: We didn’t. We only skimmed the surface, which can only mean we’ll have to have more of these gatherings. That trip was like suddenly discovering a speck of gold in a tiny Sierra stream, a sparkling piece of abalone shell on a white sand beach, an effervescent pearl in an unopened oyster.
In other words: It uplifted our souls.
One late night, after sharing a memorable meal at the Sylvia Beach Hotel and Restaurant in Newport, we returned home, put on our jammies and gathered for a glass of wine--or cocoa--and spilled out lots of long-buried secrets. I told them that because I was the first one of the group to get a divorce, I somehow felt ashamed and thought they’d think less of me. These were all “perfect” women, you see, with perfect marriages, perfect children and perfect lives. My response was to retreat. In fact, I stopped sending out Christmas messages to them, and I didn’t attend our annual luncheons for several years. I just couldn’t face the ‘shame.’
Eventually, when I remarried, I also resurfaced, but it took a lot of effort on my part to take the first step. When I did, they were delighted to have me back and seemed baffled about why I had just dropped away.
The funny thing was when I told this story in the wee small hours of the night, another woman said she, too, had dropped out for a time after her divorce. Then we both smiled at each other and thought, “Weren’t we silly to think that these wonderful women would think less of us for leaving a husband?” As it happened, of the six of us, four had divorced and remarried. Strange how history has a way of putting everything into perspective, isn’t it?
But you don’t throw a group of quasi-strangers together without some hiccups. Some liked to dawdle, some zoomed. Some told everyone within hearing distance our entire history and why we were together. Some preferred quiet anonymity. Some didn’t eat garlic, or mushrooms, or regular coffee, or meat. But those are quibbles. In the end, we ran around together day and night like a pack of hungry wolves anxious to feed on conversation and camaraderie.
My fellow “The Columnists.com” writer, Joyce Kiefer, was one of the six women on this sojourn. Hard to imagine that it’s been 45+ years since we were banging out stories together for The Spartan Daily at San Jose State. We agreed we’d both share our reminiscences of this trip with our readers. In her story she marveled, “What a treasure women’s friendship becomes over time.”
There’s no better way to describe what all of us felt as we returned to our own homes. I now realize how much I would have missed by not going.
I brought home a souvenir from the trip, the better to remember how special it was. It’s a pottery piece hand crafted by Debrah Wolf, who incorporates her sense of humor into her creations. The plate I bought has a smiling sun on one edge, and I can’t help but smile back whenever I look at it.
Debrah’s philosophy mirrors the way I remember our reunion. Her pottery comes with a card that says, “Made by careful hands, one at a time, with love, and other natural ingredients from the earth.”
That’s how I feel about my college friends now, too. Each is an extraordinary person… created one at a time, with love, and other natural ingredients.
©2005 by Joanne Engelhardt. The photo
is the property of sister columnist Joyce Kiefer. This column
first posted on Oct. 31, 2005.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or Joanne Engelhardt . To send
an email, click here and don't forget to mention Joanne's name:
talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|