Old Friends

Old Friends
Old Friends
Sat on their park bench like bookends
Newspaper blowin' through the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends

Old Friends
Winter companions the old men
Lost in their overcoats
Waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settle like dust
On the shoulders of the old friends

Can you imagine us 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 fear

(Musical Interlude)

A time it was
It was a time
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

I rolled back the clock some 34 years yesterday and caught up with a woman from almost my childhood.

Maree and I were essentially girls / women together in 1980. We laughed til we dropped and drank and argued and swapped stories and laughed some more.

We recently reconnected on Facebook.

She lives in the Blue Mountains now and as I am in Sydney for Vivid I thought it a perfect time for a get-together, and perfect it was.

The train gods conspired against us so instead of me venturing into the chilly hills, we met up at Parramatta.

Drinks and food and a jolly sit down and we were by far the noisiest guests in the pub. We made short work of the last 30 years.

Sure we are both older and there are etches on our faces and we sadly both limp along a little more than we did as spritely youngsters, but we are essentially the same. She might be a little more leftie and I might a little more rightie, but we both still enjoy a lively debate and we are both still quite militant about the 'establishment' and neither of us are able to suffer fools.

It was just bloody wonderful!

Today's youngies with the advantages of social media should never have to wonder where and why and when and with whom, all their friends are getting on. They should not ever have to meet up one overcast Saturday afternoon in Parramatta High Street to catch up on 30 years.

But oh how they will miss out if they don't. What a lovely way to roll back the time and feel like a girl again.

Paul Simon's song is more than a little haunting and melancholy, but yesterday was neither.

The more we age the more we stay the same.