The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse. ~ Helen Keller

Saturday, August 25, 2012

A Reunion

The essence of nostalgia is an awareness
that what has been will never be again.
~ Milton S. Eisenhower

Early yesterday morning I caught a glimpse of my left hand. At first it was the wedding ring that caught my eye, but soon I found myself studying the back of my hand. Spreading my fingers outward, each digit seemed cleft in two by what looked like a deflated beige football. The joints were wrinkly, the skin no longer taut, as though the outer shell had been worn far too long and was now stretched to the point that it no longer fit its frame.

Something about the hand seemed familiar, oddly comforting. What was it? Then I realized, it was my mother's hand resting on the sofa's arm. Creased, wrinkled, filled with folds of skin and faded scars from a lifetime of work, adventures, stress, these hands appear much like the soft, plump hands that reached out to me as a young girl. Back then, their look seemed foreign, strange, so unlike my own. Now I sport a pair of appendages with those same foreign markings and feel a sense of connection to another person's middle-aged world.

A few weeks ago I hosted a party for some high school classmates. With the exception of my dear friend Peggy, I had not been in touch with these people for many years. We all graduated together thirty-seven years ago, and the last class reunion I attended was ten years later. In all that time, I have had little contact with or knowledge of the lives of these people.

Easy interactions were the order of the day. Rather than halting conversations that sometimes mark the discomfort of people unfamiliar with one another, what we experienced was a common level of familiarity. Much water had surely rushed under each of our bridges in the time between then and now. Some of us may have missed out on one another’s lives for decades but we seemed to pick up where we left off, as if high school was in the not-too-distant past.

In studying each other's faces that day, I'm sure most of us could see the shadows of our high school selves in the wizened smiles and different proportions that now define us in our middle years.

Now that we have arrived smack dab in the middle of middle-age, the life changes each of us have been through certainly color our perceptions. But as we listen to old friends speak--and search for meaning in the words left unsaid--we may sometimes neglect to see the parallels in our lives. Have we really changed so drastically that the essence of who we once were no longer resides within us? Perhaps that younger self lurks just beneath the surface: idealistic, hopeful, unblemished and filled with promise.

Like the wrinkled hand that was so vexing to me, there was an unfamiliar familiarity to all of these people. Our hands may be worn with age, our faces may be seasoned, our eyes may have witnessed countless images of beauty and sorrow, and our individual realities may have driven us headlong down the path to where we now find ourselves. Yet it all makes sense.

Left to right: Stewart, Mark, Peggy, me, Vicky, Karen, Kathy, Kim, and John.

1 comment:

  1. Awwh! Great story, Debbie! Wish I could have been there! I have the same hands too - my mothers!(short fingers with big round knuckles). I said to my kids, if you forget what Gramma's hands looked like, just look at mine :)

    Bobbi

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