Tuesday, 14 April 2009

• Where are you now?

  My last post was about Facebook, sort of, and this post is, too, I suppose, but not really.  Facebook is really no more than a brushstroke or two in the big picture.  This picture has some Rod McKuen in it, too, and yet it's not really a post about him, even though some of my best writing has been about and for him.  He figures into this, in the form of his work which says it all so much more clearly....
  
  So I'll let him, in the last few lines from his lovely "Where Will I Rediscover You."
  
  
  

  Where will I come upon you, if I do? Perhaps in death or life again. When? Perhaps not ever, what then? I'll give It another day, a week. Another month. A lifetime more or less, then I'll give up.

  I found someone very dear to me on Facebook just a few short months ago, someone I'd never expected to speak to ever again, someone I'd known when I was still in high school...someone I once promised to marry, but did not, and until we found each other again, I never knew why he broke it all off.  We caught each other up on all the things that have happened in the too-many-years since we last saw each other and I found myself looking forward to the occasional times when our schedules meshed enough to allow some one-on-one chatting.  And what wonderful fun it was; comparing music we each liked, finding what we had in common and what we did not know.  Laughing, always laughing, as we did so much during those high school days. Finding how well we still knew each other, amazing ourselves at all we remembered, things we didn't remember ever knowing.  Happy in our present lives while cherishing what once was, a fine and delicate balance that never seemed difficult to manage.
  
  And you know....one of the things we promised each other was that this time we wouldn't lose touch, we'd always know, now, where the other one was and how we were doing.  I was as certain of that as I am anything else....but somewhere over the weekend, he folded his tent and vanished from my life again.  I don't know why.  I don't know what I might have said, or done, that would make him go so quickly without even so much as a goodbye. 
  
  Losing him a second time is, in some ways, more painful than the first loss.  I'd grown used to that empty space where he used to be, and when we found each other, the renewed friendship was such a joyous thing that just to call it friendship seems not to do it justice.  Now I have to learn to live without my friend again, to wonder if he ever saw the last movie we discussed, ever read the last book we talked about, and what he thought of them.  I will wonder always if he is happier than he was before, if he learned all he needed to know for some sort of final closure, and was content to just slip away.  But I will never know.
  
  It is the one feature I don't like about Facebook; someone can accept you as a friend, and then they can delete you without your knowledge.  If they're someone you don't speak to daily, you won't know it, until you type in their name and it doesn't appear.  Ironically, the ones who have done this most recently were the ones I wanted most to find again and was so happy when I did.  There was a sense of completion, a feeling of 'now we're all together, now the party can get started.'  It was terrible, then, not to find that I'd just been deleted as a friend, but that my friends had vanished altogether--simply closed down their account and gone. 
  
  No 'back in 30 minutes.' 
  No 'gone fishin'.' 
  No 'your call is important to us, please stay on the line.
  Just gone.  Je ne quitte pas.....
  
  And for all that I feel so strong about so much in my life--and I do--there is that little girl in me who wonders why her friends took their toys and went away....the playground isn't so bright anymore, and there's no Band-Aid for this. 
  
  "What'll I do
  When you are far away
  And I am blue
  What'll I do?"   (Irving Berlin)
  
  I guess what I'll do is what I always did, for Anne, for Clint, for the others.....look up at the night skies and say a prayer for them, asking God to watch over them, keep them warm, and safe, and loved.   Hope that they remember me with even a fraction of the love I hold for them....because, you see, their going away doesn't end my feelings.  If they don't know that, I missed the boat, being sure they knew how precious they were and are to me.  And if they did know, and left anyway....well.
  
  Where are you now...is it dark where you are, and cold....are you working, sleeping, dreaming? out walking under starry skies, writing a poem, sitting by the fire with your book and your tea and memories...I will never know.  And I will always wonder.
  
  Born in April, sad of heart
  you're a lonesome child
  you could make the sun shine
  with even half a smile.
  
  April people, live for love
  nothing else will do
  so come along
  and take my hand
  I was born in April too.  (Rod McKuen)
  
  
  Good night, my friends.  I miss, I love you.
  
  

  Currently Poems of Wanting, Feeling, Joy, Sorrow, Springtime and Love: 3 Paperback Book Box Set: Alone; Hand in Hand; Seasons in the Sun. By Rod McKuen see related

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