Sometimes I think about all the people I know. Some have been with me a long time, some not as long and some come and go. I have been blessed and seem to have a group of The Usual Suspects. Right now in California, I have M, the sisters, Y, and J. I don't get to see J as much as I used to because he moved and got a girl-friend and doesn't seem to have time to go drinking with me any more. But I do get to see him at family gatherings--good thing I introduced him to M's neice and he is part of the family now.
M is a teasure, she was assigned to me as my mentor when I first became a Library Manager. What can I say she took her job seriously. She taught me everything from how to do annual reports all the way to playing slots in Vegas. A couple of years ago, I asked if she could be my emergency contact. Here I am all by myself with the nearest family 1500 miles away. If I pass out in the doctor's office, somehow I don't think my mom or my brothers could come and take me home. Mind you, I hope that the doctor's office doesn't have to call M either. What I like about M is her easy going nature. "Just roll with the punches" she told me early on. She is also very detail oriented and gets it right. I really appreciate this because sometimes, I just seem be scattered all over the place. I would drive me crazy if I were my own friend.
The sisters are great. V & V are twins and I call J my sister. Sometimes you recognize yourself in someone else. The twins have commented that sometimes J and I will be talking, we are nodding and in total understanding, they on the other hand don't have a clue what we are talking about. I think somewhere in the primodial ooze our spirits were fragmented. Sometimes several people hold pieces of a single spirit. When you meet them you can recognize each other. In much the same way that I can recognize in other those traits that I don't have and can really appreicate them, there is a comfort in knowing that there is someone who can understand you because that is who they are, too.
P is also a kindred spirit. P has just returned to my life this past month. I met P in Hawaii. We shared a house with a tall Woody Allen lookalike up in the jungle of Palolo overlooking Waikiki. Sometimes things would get crazy in the house, but I could go out to the converted garage and chat with P while he was doing tech work for our roommates Internet start up. After a while, I left for saner pastures and moved in with C, J, and M--Three's company before M finished college and dubbed the Luv Shack after she finished college. For a little while P and I lost contact but then one night at the Thai restaurant we ran into each other. It turned out that P was living in the same apartment complex that the Assistant Director at the language school lived in. Talk about small worlds. For the next few years, P and I hung out pretty regularly, I would go over to his after work and we would lace up our running shoes for a trek around Diamond Head with a stop over for water at the fire station to watch the yummy firement playing volleyball or basketball. Sometimes C would join us and sometimes a teacher that worked for me and then later worked with P would join us. During this time, we were all fit and into the race scene. Niketown on Wednesday nights, Monday night Diamond Head Run, Friday night Diamond Head Runs and then Kaimana Beach to watch the fireworks, Saturday hashes and Sunday long runs. During this period, P, C, and S were my most frequent running partners and in someways even though not everyone was with me for all these runs, in my memories they are all tangled up together. I can't think about one without thinking about the others.
So P is here now, we are both at a low point in our fitness and we have made a pact that we will get better. The plan is to run either the full or half marathon in March in LA. Yesterday we walked from Venice to Malibu and back catching up. In many ways its like we were never apart. I am so glad that he is back.
No comments:
Post a Comment