"We used to GO here"

I've just returned from a three day training in Boston (well, Arlington, really). The training was pretty good; a little too basic, but still worth the time. But the best part of my trip to the Boston area was taking a walk down memory lane and reconnecting with some old friends. Here's a picture of the house where I grew up. I was pleased to see how little it has changed since most of the houses in Lexington are big and fancy and I figured the people who bought this place from my dad would tear it down and build something more spectacular. I was surprised how moved I felt driving down Bridge St. to the house.

On Wednesday night I met up with my friend Karen L., whom I haven't seen in 9 years. We had dinner in Harvard Square. Because I walked there from Tommy and Deb's and I was running late, I forgot to bring my camera. While we were making our plans to see each other, I knew I wanted to see Karen and remembered how much I liked her, but when we were actually together and talking, talking, talking, I remembered, bit by bit, all the reasons why I loved her. Just the little details of who she is, her thoughtfulness, honesty, insight and straight-talking way.


Thursday night I met up with Mike V. in Lexington, the town where we grew up. We had not seen each other in 15 years (and Mike didn't really remember the last time we saw each other, which was in Chicago, so it's kind of like even longer than 15 years) and neither of us had been to Lexington for some years, so it was quite a trip to revisit the old haunts together. We walked to our high school and toured the campus, inside and out. Mike kept saying, "what a dump!" and was making me laugh so much (partly because he's funny and partly because I was just so happy to see him and be taking this particular walk together) that I almost peed my pants.
Truly, not much has changed about Lexington High School in 19 years and the place could use some work. Honestly, can't this rich town keep up with basic maintenance on it's HS?































Here's Mike in what used to be the smoking area. Yes, we are old enough to have gone to high school when they let the kids smoke! And not just cigarettes, though the school only officially supported smoking cigarettes. (Micheal is not really smoking a joint in this picture, but he is in "the smoking area".)

















And here's a picture of Mike I took in the student parking lot at LHS back in the day:














We spoke to a couple of people inside the school and Mike would explain, "we used to GO here." Something about the way he said this was quintessential greater Bostonian to me and I dug it. Felt like home.

After a nice dinner at the Indian restaurant in town, we wanted to keep talking and have a drink, but the only place to sit and have a drink in Lexington (other than the ridiculously swanky wine bar) was this cheesy chain restaurant/bar that actually serves something called a smoretini. Blech! We didn't try it, but we did have a waiter take our picture in front of the cheesy sign as we left. (It's a little unfair of me to post this picture since it's not very flattering of my friend, nor does it really look like him...but it's a good picture of me and this is my blog! And it's the only picture of the two of us.)












Of all the things we talked about and caught up on over the course of the evening, I thought of about a dozen other things I had meant to tell or ask Mike. Like I wonder if he remembers which Beatles song we used to sing together. Oh well, next time.

Lexington is a bit of a pretentious town and my friends and I, well, we were kind of the poor kids from the wrong side of the tracks. But, as Mike pointed out to me, we were very lucky to grow up in such a safe place where we had a lot of freedom. Seeing these old friends was really nice and made me awfully happy in ways I find hard to adequately describe. I laughed a lot today in my car on the way home just from the pure joy and beauty of the experience. And this Bruce Cockburn song came on the radio, which fit perfectly. There's something incredibly reassuring about discovering that the friends I loved so many years ago are, essentially, still the same people they were then and the qualities that I always appreciated and admired in them are still the qualities I appreciate in people now. And reflecting back on our youth from two decades later was exciting and satisfying. I'm really grateful that I got to spend time with these long lost friends.

I've been loving Alice Munro's short stories. They're sad, like Raymond Carver's stories, but somehow more precise and, for some reason, hopeful. They really speak to loss and love and life and all the things we just can't possibly hold on to or even describe. My trip to Lexington, and especially my walk through the high school with Mike, reminded me of this passage from a story of hers I just read last week:

Something had happened here. In your life there are a few places, or maybe only one place, where something has happened. And then there are the other places, which are just other places.

"We used to GO here!"