March 16, 2004
Old Friends
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on.
- Mary Schmich
Inspired, in part, by one of the stories that Lynette told me last week, I decided to dig through one of my boxes of collected papers, find the addresses of some people I haven't talked to or seen in years, mostly people I worked with at Bon Appetit, and write them letters. It was oddly frightening, and exciting, and, in the end, enjoyable.
Every once in a while, I remember that I have all those addresses, and I think about writing to the people who have long disappeared from my life. I've wanted to write them, for sure. I've wanted to tell those people how much they meant to me, how I still remember them, years later. I've wondered if they would remember me at all, wondered if they ever think about me. I've wondered if they would remember the same stories as I do, wondered if they're still around, in Corvallis, in Oregon... in life. I've never gotten past what to say, what to write to them, though; I've never thought I had anything substantial worth writing them about. And it always seems to come back to the substantial, or to the concrete, at least. I have memories and thoughts and feelings, but I don't know how to transform them into something worth writing, into something worth sending. Lynette's story, though, how she "made someone's day" in an indescribable, but real nonetheless, way seemed to provide enough impetus for me to try.
As I started to write the letters, I thought about all sorts of things, abstract memories and recollections, I had forgotten: the kidnapping of my teddy bear (which I think sounds better, and more mature, in the context of the whole story), shelling two cases of hard-boiled eggs a night (432 eggs), the foil-wrapped balloon disco ball, the time my saucier pretended to cut off his hand off and freaked me out, the time my prep cook did cut his hand (not off, but it was enough for the ER) and freaked me out, the pitchers of beer "left over" from caterings.
When I left Bon Appetit, everyone signed a chef jacket for me. It's an old one, filled with stains, and blotches, and memories of work. Some people wrote nice things: "Please, oh please, don't go," and "You will always be the twinkle in my eyes." Some people wrote not-so-nice things: "I'm still upset about your birthday party," (from a woman I didn't invite) and "we'll have to go to coffee maybe," (from a girl who stood me up... twice). Some people... well, I'm STILL trying to figure out what the hell they meant (or is wrong with them): "There once was a man from Corvallis/ who thought his dick was a chalice," (from the saucier I mentioned earlier).
I look over these signed names in front of me; I think about these recrudesced memories; I contemplate this confluence of the concrete and conceptualized. It seems to me, all too often, that I have a hard time connecting those disparate existences. Despite my social anxiety, or perhaps because of it, I value the social bonds I form with others more than I could ever articulate. These memories, these thoughts, these abstractions mean so much to me, yet I never seem to be able to construct concrete expressions of them; I never seem to be able to sign my name to a jacket and give it to someone. I never seem to be able to finish writing the letters to people long gone from my concrete life.
I worry all the time that people in my life now don't know how incredibly much they mean to me. I'm not good at the customary methods of social interactions: I can't call people on the phone, I don't stop by uninvited-- even email, with its purported impersonal nature, is hard for me. I worry all the time that people in my life now will become like the people in my past. I'll never write, I'll never call, I'll never let them know how much they meant to me, how much they still mean to me. I worry that the social bonds that make up my life are fleeting too fast, and that I never get a chance to articulate my appreciation.
Yesterday, I finished the last of the letters I set out to write. It was a small stack, a bit more than a half-dozen. I wrote a few current friends, too, because it seemed important to me to not fall into the easy trap of turning around, looking back, and getting lost in the past-- the easy trap I too often fall for. I held the stack of letters in my hand for a while, held them as concrete expressions of the appreciation I so often forget to show. I held the stack of letters in my hand, and felt good about what I had done, in multiple senses of the phrase: I felt good about where I'd been, and what I'd done there; I felt good about where I am, and how I got here; I felt good about writing people from so long ago, and writing people I still know; I felt good about affixing the stamps, and sending the letters on their way, despite the conflicted feelings of anxiety and appreciation and uncertainty I felt as well. Mostly, though, I felt good about myself, and hope that maybe, just maybe, the people I wrote to will feel good, too.
Posted by Sean at March 16, 2004 07:16 PM