Not a gray hair in sight
I'm looking for a metaphor people! - I want to segue into a story about an old piece of clothing - a favourite shirt or glove that hasn't been worn for a while. Something that when tried on after a long time, sorta - you know - fits like a glove. Except, you see, it has to more than that, because I wanted to use it as an introduction to a story - a true story. Something important.
North Finchley Girl (NFG) came into my life a week before my 21st birthday. I know this because I invited her as soon as I met her, and IG got really really super pissed with me. In a very short time we made a lasting connection, and also immediately agreed to be friends until we retired to the same Dunedin rest home, where we would spend our salad days throwing pureed food at each other.
Like many friendships forged in the days before running water and electricity, they were made to last. I stayed with her in London, where she taught me to play
500's - a brilliant story in itself if you ask me.
To this day I still remember first meeting up with her at an underground station - I immediately noticed she'd developed a distinctive plum in her accent, but failed to notice she was getting more and more embarrassed, while I was getting more and more animated (and loud) during our conversation on the tube; it seems one does not talk on the tube - one keeps ones business to oneself :)
Always a lot of fun, once in North Finchley, NFG plied me with drinks, accommodation, and enough sightseeing to give Frommer a headache - and for all that I am eternally grateful. My thoughts of London will always be associated with her.
After London, she came back to Auckland, and we unfortunately went our own way in life, but over the years it's honest to say I've thought of her often - and I wondered what she had done with her special brand of madness. I missed my friend.
When I moved to Auckland, it took over a year to face my inner demons and contact her. The trail went cold - and in all honesty after I failed the first time, I was reluctant to try again. When I saw her name at
old friends I contacted her via the site, and we arranged to catch up. This meeting was chronicled somewhere here - I just cant find it...anyway...
I've been meaning to catch up with her again, but to be honest a part of me was reluctant. I quickly beat the crap out of the reluctant bit and we finally caught up for dinner tonight.
This is where the bit about the glove would have fitted brilliantly....
In less than 15 seconds, twenty years were gone, and for me it was as if we were those two kids in that underground again. We reaffirmed our commitment to our salad days before heading off to drink wine, and eat pasta. There wasn't a silent moment - we had twenty years to catch up on after all.
At the end of the night it was obvious that there were going to be many more catch ups, because great friends are born of many things, the least of all an undefinable bond that exists for no understandable reason. They just are.
Pity the fool who writes about me!
