Those Ties that Bind

July 26, 2022

We hosted a lifelong friend for a couple of days last week. I’ve known her for more than six decades and we consider ourselves honorary sisters. She’s a considerate and appreciative houseguest, frequently asking how she can help, and as always, she left a sweet thank-you gift.

We had a delightful visit in many ways, chatting about mundane pleasures like the garden or new recipes to try. There’s no one you can talk as freely with—on most topics—as someone you’ve known since babyhood and who’s familiar with every reel of the movie of your life.

However, the reel that is now playing from my life movie is unfamiliar to her. I’ve been embedded in esoteric and alternative topics for many years. She’s a staunch Catholic and a believer in “science” and whatever the mainstream media says. From pre-Covid-era conversations, she knows I distrust vaccines and I know she thinks they’re lifesavers. 

For this visit, I was determined not to bring up sensitive topics like vaccines, masks, the monkeypox farce…My vow of silence got derailed in the first few seconds. She materialized with a blue surgical mask covering most of her face when we picked her up at the airport, and I literally didn’t recognize her. So my first words were not, “I’m so glad you’re here!“ They were, “Would you please take off that mask?“

*****

Masks were not mentioned again. She did bring up Covid a few times, but we talked mostly about our garden remodels and our families, and did a few touristy things. It felt like our conversations used up about 5% of my capacity. The rest of me was humming along, waiting for her to leave so that I could get back to what feels like my real life and purpose…even if that largely consists of sitting and daydreaming, coloring in the New Earth on my mental drawing board, painting a scarlet butterfly over there, a meadow of iridescent grass over here. 

I used to think I would be traumatized if I were cut off from certain antique relationships that span my time on Planet Earth. I would be deeply grieved if this particular friendship ended, and I would miss this “sister” terribly. But the level of devastation I’ve always imagined feels like it’s been taken down a notch or two. I think I’m snipping delicately away at some of those ties that bind me to the old ways, and my old life that no longer quite fits.

After dropping her off at the airport, I returned to daydreaming my New Earth into being. I added a one-person skiff to my mental sketch of a placid silvery lake. And then a pair of oars so that I may row toward the future once I’m good and ready.