reunion | sarahscapes

Human eye – credit unknown

I am really enjoying these one-word WP Daily Post prompts – like this one, vision. As someone who loves to play with words, I am especially drawn in by the possibilities of multiple and layered interpretations. Besides … what response appears today might change completely tomorrow. You just never know!

But ‘vision’ feels appropriate to me now, one full week after my remarkable 50th high school reunion gatherings. For one thing, how we visualize one another depends upon how recently we saw one another. In some cases I had not seen a classmate since 1966. Even so, it didn’t take much scrutiny to figure out who she is. Having matched the face with memory, next to follow was body posture, hand gesture, voice inflection.

For those with whom I have been in more recent contact, my vision for re-connection was more visceral. Accelerating pulse. A twinge of curiosity. A pervasive sense of well-being, joy. Whatever the individual situation, it was just plain invigorating to see everyone who was able to come – fully half the class, as it turned out.

Now, a week and many warm exchanges later, I am envisioning how best for us to remain in contact going forward. Without tangling us in the snarl of email threads that very quickly cross one another’s path and end up more confusing than elucidating, given that some ‘reply all’ and others, just to the one sending … some continue to just add on even with a new subject and others keep starting a new email every time they have something to share. Something more personal and private than social media.

I envision a simple way for us to share, plan, exchange and update that will stay put and be visible across time. It will of course take time for us to get up to speed, for it to feel comfortable if not, even, second nature. It turns out that WordPress has just the answer and this week, I am going to launch our private site. Here’s hoping it proves the vision of welcoming and simple-to-use connectivity I anticipate!

DSC_0464-Pink-dogwood-blossom-in-sunlight-shadow-Wyncote-Pennsylvania-USA-121x187 Today’s WP Daily Prompt is once again synchronistic. This weekend I celebrate my 50th reunion along with nearly 40 women with whom I had the privilege to graduate from high school.

This is indeed a joyous occasion. For some of us, friendships forged back then have remained bedrocks of our lives since. For many others, reunions have served as an opportunity to rediscover one another. It touches me, how someone I hardly could identify back then has turned into someone entirely captivating! While I stand somewhat to the side during animated renditions of ‘remember when …‘ (I attended only the final three years), I am front and center when it comes to open-hearted re-uniting.

I am curious. I am moved. I am blown away. I feel like a whole new world of connection and possibility has opened before and within me.

We are lucky. We are lucky to have lived so long and so well. To have had our incredible education, our opportunities to deepen as individuals and expand as productive members of society. We are lucky to be able to gather. And we are lucky to have received a loving chain of messages from those too ill or too far away to join us.

I carry the shadows of loss, hovering like a soft gray cloud. I hold the loss of those I love and had hoped to see. I know the losses of illness and aging that hold some of us captive. Just last week, we lost one of our classmates who had hoped to join us today. Her brain tumor proved more aggressive than anticipated. This morning, I heard from another who cannot join us because her oldest sister is dying.

And I am struck by the mirroring of the day itself with my inner mood as I anticipate greeting those interesting and complex women I have not seen – some of them, at least – since that June day in 1966 when we walked out the school door, dressed in white and clutching our diplomas. For this day has dawned in what I think of as Massachusetts-mixed – the blue sky struggling to emerge past gray clouds. Likewise, buds struggle to burst forth from their grayed stalks in a show of predictability we have come to count upon. Spring follows winter. Yet this spring, a shadow of winter still hangs over us, casting a gentle reminder that some forms of predictability should never be taken for granted.

I will miss those women who cannot be here with us today, regardless of the reasons. They reside in my heart, cradled in both the shadow and the bloom that is life.