Muddy Waters of forgiveness...

I'm wading through some muddy waters right now. I can't see where the drop off is. If the bottom is firm. If there is danger below. I've been standing on one side of this river. A woman, my old friend, is on the other.

Our friendship started when we were teenagers. We spent summers driving around in the "frolic-mobile" eating French baguettes hot from the baker's oven and drinking ice cold Dr. Peppers in 46 oz cups, going from yard sale to yard sale looking for some thing that made us laugh or we just had to have. We went away to college together. We played hours of Rummy and starred in my TV show. We broke up. And then a year or so later came back together with the air of inevitability that our friendship seemed to have. I became pregnant and she didn't say, "You have to get rid of it." the way my other friends did. (She and Chowder were the only two.) We waited tables together. We moved in together. We sat for long hours out on our balcony smoking cigarettes and listening to music. We made up stories about limbless cats, victims of tragic factory accidents, and wrote some good and some melodramatic poetry. We went through boyfriends and husbands.

There was an intensity to our friendship that I can't put into words. The friendship consumed me, perhaps us. There would be long times of imbalance. and then resentment. and in 1998 when she quickly entered into an ill-advised marriage the intensity became too much. I held it together to go to the florist and make her a bouquet and to go home and bake her a wedding cake and to take her pictures and to go down to the courthouse and to help her pack her things into the back of her VW bug and to watch her drive away to Texas...and then it all combusted and fell down like ash. And I never spoke to her again.

She was never completely out of my life. One of my friends had married her brother. And another of my friends stayed in touch. I heard of her life. of the birth of her son. I came so close to mailing the beautiful blanket and small teddy bear I bought for him. so close. But, I just couldn't bring myself there again. I never felt anger. or judgment. or ill will. I have always wished her good things. I have always kept her in my prayers. I just couldn't bring her back into my life. I feared for my separateness.

but now we are at the same place on the riverbanks. directly across from each other.
And she has just called out my name.