Forty-two Years

Heading out for an adventure in time and space for the weekend. I’m flying to the East Coast to participate in a reunion of the . . . well, there rests my dilemma. Do I refer to these sixty year old individuals as ‘boys’ which is how I last knew them, or should they be called ‘men’ as they are now. I am myself sixty years old now. So are they. As Dylan says, “Every step of the way we walk the line/Your days are numbered, so are mine.” We have much to say to each other, nowhere to escape. I have no visual image of any of these masculine gendered people (for lack of better words) except from our adolescent days which expired over four decades ago. Then we sat in classes, went to school events, talked about girls and sex, a bit of politics, SAT scores and class rankings. I suspect that after forty-two years this much hasn’t altered a great deal: we will still talk about school events, girls and sex, and a bit more politics. Perhaps for me underlying the talk may be SAT scores (mine were the lowest in the group), and class rankings (yes, the lowest as well). Instead of classes, we will discuss our work, and perhaps we won’t compare salaries and awards. I hope we can share what we’ve learned and would gladly teach. We can talk about the same people, but alas, these, too, we haven’t seen in forty-two years. I think we will learn that some have died.


And yet, there have been moments when, over the past few weeks, I have thought about this weekend, there arose in me an emotional wave which borders on tears. When I would think of greeting these men who I haven’t seen since they were eighteen year old boys, I imagined mutuality of the embrace which held in its grip the years: we have made it, all, in our way, and have come here to be who we are with those with whom we were. I wrap my arms about you in greeting, in triumph, and in hope. Our cups runneth over.