keep in touch

It’s a small step, but I’ve decided to maintain a list of contacts and be sure to send them all cards on the major holidays.. and send some of the closer friends cards on minor holidays.

My cousin let me know that her daughter’s cheer dance meet was in my neighborhood this weekend. So I met up with them there and then we went to lunch. For someone whose experience with cheer dance had been limited to watching Bring it On, it was an amazing spectacle. In addition to virtuosic lifts, tumbling and some kinda hoochie dancing, it was an exercise in incredible coordination that 30 or so girls could move around so vigorously and simultaneously in a relatively small area without anyone getting hurt. We only get together usually once a year or so, though we don’t live far. So it was super good to see them all in action.

for an old friend with whom I’d lost touch. I knew he’d moved with his family to Maine. At one time, we’d worked part time at the same oddball shop. Then, post job stayed in touch. Many years ago in another city, I went to Thanksgiving at his place. Though he never really does this kind of thing, he set me up with a friend of his (one of my best looking dates ever).

I just typed his name in. Not much came up, though he has a name that I’d think is fairly common. He was a carpenter, a builder of houses and a crafter of small exquisite objects. He had a dark sardonic wit wrapped in a quiet warm blanket of a southern voice. He was game for listening to eclectic music in tiny clubs and good at gifting. He was close with his brother. Dad to two girls, and slightly bewildered to find himself the lone male in the household. I can see his slight smile in my head – he looked friendly, but needed to spend a lot of time by himself.

Tried another search, adding some geography and using his full name and found his obit, with scant information, from 2005. What is the right way to describe, this delayed sadness now?

and I found time today to talk about family and what we’re thinking, worrying about re: our folks and their health. finally. I’m grateful we’ve opened up this line of communication.

to see old friends and their families. it’s spectacular to have a sense of who these kids are. hilarious and precocious variations on the people I know and love.

Amy (greenforlife), you have made my day. So here is Goal Number 17 – keep in touch. Don’t forget about anyone; if i have a random thought about anyone, send them a message to say hi. It will give them the biggest smile, just like mine right now.
xx

my aunt and uncle in the desert. they’re not getting any younger, as I was reminded by the many examples of different degrees and ways of aging encountered over the past couple of weeks.

and through out my growing up days (which appear to continue indefinitely) they have been unfailingly thoughtful. examples of aunt and uncle-hood to live up to.

Having just graduated from high school, I am afraid that I will lose contact with people I care about. I shouldn’t, becauser those I really care about I always see non stop, its just that we’re going to different schools this fally, and I’m sure it will be harder to talk and hang out as much as we used to. But I think it will be okay, because we are really close and no matter what, we are always there for each other. Those friendshops are there forever, I don’t know, I guess this whole commencement just has me a bit paranoid.

to a place where there are maybe a dozen folks I’ve known in various ways over the years. Some I’ve been in great touch with, others, not so much. Not a reunion, but come to think of it, kind of like one.

There’s plenty stress in trying to figure out how to manage? juggle? all of the various degrees of in touch/out of touch. And feeling somewhere between – just closing my eyes and taking things as they come, and – making a concerted effort to coordinate quality time with those I need to spend time with.

I’m inclined toward the latter path. Here we go.

That there are some people that just don’t fit and some people that you become less empowered by. I really do need be more selective about the type of people I let in my space.