Everything Changes

     I recently connected—on Facebook— with someone I worked with decades ago. I’d like to say that she looked the same, but she didn’t. It’s hard to recall one picture and be confronted with a totally different picture. And who is this person? She still loves animals and gardens. I wonder if she still owns any Persian miniature paintings or the camel saddle she once kept in her living room. 

     Perhaps it is best to keep people you haven't seen in awhile in their proper time frames. What is my childhood friend Joyce doing? She shocked my mother when she earned money in college by posing nude for a photographer. Her father bought up as many magazines as he could find when an artistic photo of her in the buff appeared in an upscale photography magazine. We lost contact so I never did find out whether she continued that lucrative activity.

     And it goes on and on— I skipped my high school and college reunions so I never had the chance of following the changes. 

     Several years ago someone I knew in high school contacted me about a reunion. And she asked if I was still creating ink drawings and writing poems. Yes, both. I skipped the reunion, but did ask her if her husband, also a school buddy, still did The New York Times Sunday puzzle with a pen and a timer. 

     “Of course,” she said. It’s heartening when some things stay the same.