I asked Bing Image Creator for "Two 70 year old women with short grey hair and wearing glasses, holding tea cups, sitting and chatting, in the style of Matisse". None of these images really resemble neither me nor my friend very much at all - but I find the "Matisse" twist a refreshing change from the "cartoon" style that I've usually asked Bing for! :)
A friend of mine since nearly 50 years got in touch recently and said she'd be in my town for a few days, working. She's an optician by profession; retired since a few years, but substituting now and then. And the chain she used to work for has shops in various cities; so sometimes she makes it into a kind of "working holiday" to go and help out somewhere different than in her own home town, for a week or so.
Anyway, this time her stay also included a work free Sunday. So I invited her to spend part of that day with me. She came to me for lunch, and as we had a lot to catch up on, she also stayed on for afternoon tea before she went back to her hotel.
We got to know one another in our early twenties up in Karlstad (where we both lived back then), via a church and a youth gospel choir there. Now we are both turning 70 in August. Hard to grasp!!
The last time we met was a couple of years "before the pandemic". During the course of our conversation this afternoon we found ourselves using "before/after the pandemic" as a time marker so many times that it struck us both that covid really did bring about quite a few changes in people's social lives (both our own and other friends').
Over the last seven years or so, we have also both lost quite a few mutual old friends (although not actually to covid, I think). So there was a lot to reminisce about.
And as many times before in later years (whenever getting together with other old friends approaching 70), I was once again reminded of Simon & Garfunkel's song Old Friends/Bookends. Even if today was a summer Sunday, and we were sitting indoors rather than outdoors on a park bench (and it was definitely not cold outside either!)
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends
Years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy
Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fears
Time it was
And what a time it was
It was . . .
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago . . . it must be . . .
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you
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A truly meaningful reunion much like turning the pages of a cherished album of shared memories, accompanied by tea and conversation, quietly echoing the sentiment of Old Friends despite the summer setting and the years that have passed
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ro.
DeleteThe song is perfect for this post. Yes, it seems that more and more we define time by before or after covid.
ReplyDeleteGinny, it is one S&G song that I keep coming back to... :)
DeleteBing image creator made you look like twins, or at least sisters - the AI model behind it does not seem to have been trained with many different pictures of elderly ladies with short grey hair. For instance, your prompt probably did not include them to be of white skin, right? Anyway, the Matisse twist really is a nice touch.
ReplyDeleteLovely to see old friends, and how great that your friend is well and willing enough to go for such "working holidays" every now and then! At work, we've been talking about the effects the pandemic - mainly the enforced stay-at-home rules - had on children and young people. Most of my colleagues have children of school age, and they said the effects are very noticeable even now, a few years later.
Meike, when it comes to skin colour, my prompt was indded as prejudiced as the result that I got! (i.e. assuming white...) In my first attempt, not specifying any special style at all (and thus producing "photo-like" images), one of four images actually showed two black women, though! (But those too looked like twins!)
DeleteThose images are charming.
ReplyDeleteIt is refreshing and recharging to spend time with old friends, sharing memories.
The pandemic seems such a long time ago but its effects are still noticeable in so many ways.
Janice, it felt like an afternoon well spent, sharing both memories and "updates"
DeleteOld friends are the best - and the delight is that even if you've not met up for a while, the time drops away and it feels like always.
ReplyDeleteJenny, I like how you put it: "time drops away" :)
DeleteMeeting up with old friends after an absence must be fascinating with so much history with which to catch up. These days I usually just meet up with people I see fairly regularly. The exception is my New Zealand visitors but even then I'm always in touch even if we do live at opposite ends of the earth.
ReplyDeleteGraham, E and I are also Facebook friends with several mutual friends, so have kept "somewhat" updated that way. But she rarely posts there herself and I don't really write much "personal" stuff there either. So yes, there was a bit of catching up on both sides now that we met in person...
DeleteWhat a wonderful way to spend the day - there's nothing as good as catching up with old friends!
ReplyDeleteCarol, I have found several of the friendships formed during my years in Karlstad to be longlasting ones, and often surprisingly easy to reconnect with even if "long time no see".
ReplyDelete