I consider a real close friend a rare find. And I’m sure that none would argue that true love is not only a rare find, but a treasure to be cherished. I believe both have become rarer finds in recent times. People have become much too busy and distracted by the demands of everyday life. Most available time is devoted to family, career, and simply trying to make ends meet. Free time, more specifically, personal time, has become even more of a rarity. Just as houseplants require the mindful care of proper soil, water, and light, the growing of human relationships requires significant, devoted expenditure of time, effort, and energy. All three have become increasingly rare commodities. At least that is what I have found. In my lifetime, friendships and loves have ebbed and flowed like the waves upon the shore. Still, both remain an essential need, a desire, a hunger that I long to satisfy. A major impediment has been my lifelong nomadic lifestyle.
Moving as a child, and then during my stint in the military, made investing in long term personal relationships seem frivolous. Yet, from youth on, I sought the comfort and solace of the sea in aiding and abetting my search, no matter where the roads of life took me. I spent much time walking shorelines worldwide in the hope of finding that friend, that soulmate, that lover extraordinaire – for that someone walking the shore hoping to find someone like me. Silly, I know. But haven’t you ever? Again, the question is simply rhetorical.
I’ve been a late bloomer in many regards. Making friends has been no exception. When in high school, Jannifer (Jennifer, but with an “A”) was a tall, blonde, beautiful, and quite gregarious classmate. I feared her. We both lived in Speonk and rode the same school bus. She was a cheerleader. I was on the basketball team – something I learned later in life that she would not remember. We were both active in many of the same extracurricular school activities. We traveled in different circles then. Life after high school took us on very divergent paths. Jannifer, as well as all my high school classmates, quickly faded into oblivion.
Fifty years after graduation, I received an email from Jannifer. She was involved in putting together a class reunion. At the time, she lived on the east coast of Florida, and I lived just three hours away on the west coast. I never made it to the reunion, but having reconnected, we stayed in touch. Before long, we became smart phone chums, spending hours chatting up a storm over anything and everything. We two former high school acquaintances from half a century earlier quickly became golden year friends. Sometimes the best of friendships take time to blossom. Several poems in this book were inspired by Jannifer. I’ll let you figure out which ones.
As far as the topic of love goes, I married young. Time revealed that she and I were, at best, only good friends. This became painfully clear when I agreed to teach a course on relationships to high school students at our church. During preparations for the lessons, it became evident, time and again, my marriage fit hand-in-glove with the descriptions of the worst cases. As a family, there naturally was love between us. But neither one of us was in love with the other. When our youngest turned sixteen, we divorced. At fifty years of age, I resigned myself to living the rest of my life alone. Boy, did I ever get that wrong. Lightning unexpectedly struck in a campus library at a university where I had begun teaching. Bam! Like the song says, I found love in a hopeless place. Sometimes rare finds sneak up on you when least expected.