Thursday evening I met my friend Amy for dinner at the Dry Dock Cafe in Norwalk. It had been a while since we'd spent some time together, and we figured it was time. When we sat at the table, the first thing Amy did, after giving me a big hug, was hand me a picture. She found it amongst the collection of a friend whose estate she is handling, and she wanted me to have it.
"That's not Tom Haydock, is it?" I asked, trying to remember if Tom and I had ever been involved in anything at the Wilton Playshop together and realizing at the same time that it wasn't Tom.
"No, it's Guy Allred." She replied.
"Oh, wow. This must be twenty years or so ago. I have hair, a mustache and about 100 fewer pounds."
"I found another picture from my wedding of Quentin with Guy, X, and Y. Only _____ is still alive."
Cancer claimed Quentin, Amy's ex husband, a year or so ago. AIDS took Guy and X from us long before that.
But it was not a sad occasion. The picture brought back lots of good memories. It was taken during the cast party after a show at the Wilton Playshop that I no longer remember--I occasionally helped out as stage crew. Guy and I are sitting (well, leaning against some piece of furniture) and smiling for the whoever took the picture. I was very attracted to Guy, even though blonds are not usually my "type." Not to mention that Brian and I were a couple at that point in time, and I would not even have considered getting involved with Guy, nor he with me.
Brian, now ex, is nowhere in evidence in the picture. That often happened at parties we went to. One of my fellow Connecticut Choraliers once remarked, "You know, whenever we have a party, if one of you comes into a room, the other one leaves." It was never intentional, and neither of us realized that happened. We simply both mingled with the people we knew at these parties, and we never felt the need to constantly be at each other's side. Of course, looking back, one wonders...
From there, our conversation moved on to other people we had both known at the Playshop and in the Choraliers and then on to catching up with recent events in our lives.
Amy's small gift evokes happy memories of a time when my life was different and of friends who have gone on. And I suppose that it is not a coincidence that this year's theme for our Education for Ministry spiritual autobiographies is "Pictures."
Peace,
Jeffri
re: EfM. When you say pitures, do you mean photographs? What happens if you are a second or third child or a cameraless family? In fact I haven't looked at past photos for so long I hardly know where to look. AND, why is that? Some sort of paranoia about something, I suppose. Can't face the past? Can't forgive the past? Can't or won't? hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, glad you and Amy were able to share memories with fondness even if some if it was sad.