Once upon a five-twenty something train leaving Grand Central Station after a hard day's work almost a decade ago....two friends....one coming from her midtown, corporate office wearing her usual business attire and the other just making the train in her flip-flops and t-shirt having spent the day at the water park with her campers....talked like they always did for the entire sixty-three minute ride as they ventured to a place known as home.
On this particular day, it had been a while since these two friends had seen each other. So there was a lot to catch up on...naturally. One friend, we shall call her Danielle, mentioned that she ran into a certain boy from this place they call home and phone numbers were exchanged. She didn't seem too interested in the prospect of this boy calling her. The other friend, let's call her Liz, knew this certain boy came from a good italian family...so it was worth giving him a chance. No one really remembers, but chances are this conversation lasted about four minutes...not too long, because these friends only had fifty-nine minutes remaining on their ride to cover their important conversational agendas.
Today, on this special day in July, these two friends met again in that place they call home to shower Danielle with gifts because at some point she became interested in that boy that came from a good italian family....so much, she agreed to marry him. And like so many parties dating back to their childhood...there were friends and family giggling, endless amounts of food and drinks, children splashing in the pool, and unlike those train rides out of Grand Central, the essence of time was disregarded.
Like all the wonderful times that brought these two friends together...whether it be for class, caulking the bath tub, a student council meeting, sweet sixteens, lunch, a drink, soccer practice, the births of their nieces and nephews, planning a prom and a ten-year reunion, getting tea, fixing the computer, filing papers at that midtown-corporate office, having a bottle of wine, birthday & graduation parties, crashing at each other's place, cooking dinner, installing wireless internet, catering gigs, key west vacations, "oh my god, how do I fix my iPod" tech support phone calls, happy hours on an expense account (something teachers know nothing about), learning about the anatomy of the eye, and those sixty-three minute train rides to that place they call home...they all must come to an end. As this beautiful day fell into night, one friend hugged the other good-bye cherishing the past, looking forward to the future and thinking about Jean-Jacques Rousseau's words: the more things change, the more things stay the same.
The entire collection of Danielle's shower photos.
No comments:
Post a Comment