We Were Here
Yesterday I had the honor of attending the celebration of our friend Bob’s 75th birthday. We gathered outdoors on a hilltop, and the weather was warm and sunny, unmarred by the characteristic wind, and the world was beautiful, impossibly beautiful. Bob graciously proclaimed that this was not a celebration for him, but for all of his friends, a sort of thank you to everyone who had touched his life over the years in so many good ways.
And it did indeed feel like a festival of friendship and gratitude. Some kind of magic kicked in. Maybe it’s the pandemic, or humbling bouts with cancer, or even just the cumulative effects of getting older, but everyone seemed to possess a deep sense of vulnerability, awareness, and appreciation. There was plenty of humor and teasing, but it was affectionate and kind. There was no shame in being sentimental in this group, or expressing genuine fondness, and it was comforting—in fact, it felt exactly how we should be with one another. As the poet William Stafford put it, “The darkness around us is deep.” We need no further reminders that our time here is precious and brief.
There happened to be a visiting musician named Cam at this party, one of very few present who could be classified as young, and I felt an immediate kinship with him when, apropos of nothing, he announced, “It’s so amazing just being alive.” The kid got it. I myself often walk around in a state of enchantment, and the older I get, the more aware I am of the privilege and wonder of being present and bearing witness.
As another poet-mentor, Mary Oliver, advised, “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back…don’t be afraid of its plenty.”
That’s what I was feeling on the hilltop yesterday. Joyful, and unafraid of its plenty. I am convinced, too, that joy fortifies the soul for battles ahead, and sadness is unavoidable but doesn’t help anyone. And the very poignancy of our impermanence makes everything more precious and worthy of our attention.
A few days ago, an old high school classmate (we’ll call her Barbara) found me online and reached out to me. I hadn’t seen Barbara since 1968, but I was pleased that she wrote. I find it amazing that we can find people from our distant past and casually say hello. It usually amounts to nothing, but, like returning to a book begun long ago, we can finally see what happened next, and that’s intrinsically interesting.
Anyway, in October of 1967, Barbara’s boyfriend Don, the first love of her life, died in an automobile accident. It was a shocking event in our little town, and I remember seeing her at the wake, like a bereaved widow, her sorrow fathomless. In the fifty-plus years that have followed, she has been married twice, raised a family, and has a fine life, but now she specifically wanted to talk to me about those ancient days. She was hoping to find new details or perspectives and intensify her memories of Don through the memories of others who were there. It wasn’t so much about obtaining closure, which seemed unattainable anyway; it was, on the contrary, a deliberate reopening. She wanted to open it all up and hold Don more closely, integrating his presence into her current life. This led to reflections about loss and what grief teaches, and how the past is not past, and how we are rendered human through our sorrow, and shaped by love in its myriad forms.
Later, prompted by Barbara’s quest, I pulled out a yearbook from our junior high days, the 1964 Musketeer, one of very few such artifacts still in my possession. And I did find a tiny pixilated picture of Don for her, but even more intriguing, I looked at the rest of us, including myself, and we seem as alien and remote as tintype images in an antique store. My God. The teased hair with clip-on velvet bows, the little plaid skirts and bloomer-style gym suits, the boys with their pompadours and cardigans, their heavy-lidded eyes so eager to escape. The draft lottery was still five years away.
And we were seventeen…and we were seventy.
This morning I walked to the beach and saw a few families with babies, and a couple of locals I have known since they were children, and they were all just being young in the sunshine.
“Enjoy your youth,” I said, in jest. “It’s fleeting.”
“Oh, dear,” said Tavis, quick to take the bait. “We better get up and start doing something. We’re wasting time.”
But they weren’t wasting time, and they knew it. They were fully immersed in the moment and each other, and the sea was sparkling and the sky was wide.
I like being this age––not quite 75, but getting there. My friend Aristotle, nearing 90, says that he feels like a spaceship coming back into earth’s orbit, and pieces are falling off along the way and he wonders what will be left of him by the time he makes his landing. I recognize that sensation of losing parts, but I like to think I have picked up some compensatory wisdom.
It’s all out there, all the lessons, all the memories, all the now. There is no resolution, only acceptance, and there are no retakes, only ongoing-ness.
We can talk to one another along the way. Doesn’t that sometimes help? Writing, too––maybe the words will reach another soul.
So I’m lighting candles in the window.
Somehow everything that happened led me to this implausible here, and I stand on a hilltop in my lucky life with fellow travelers, faded and fragile but luminous with love, saying yes and saying thank you.