Old Friends

After work yesterday I went downtown to hook up with some old college buddies. I haven't seen Sophie & Steve (pronounced Sophiensteve) since their first child was an infant. (She is now 24). In the years since they left Seattle and got divinity degrees and all that we completely lost touch. Chalk up another thankyouverymuch for Facebook.

We met at a gastro-pub (Seattlites: it's the Black Bottle in Belltown. Go there. Tell Paul I sent you) owned by an old seminary friend of theirs. Steve had just been wondering if they would recognize me right away when I walked in. "There she is!" he exclaimed. (Guess it wasn't that hard). Of course, we haven't changed that much. Sophie's hair is shorter, Steve's is greyer and I no longer wear a size 0 but otherwise, I'd have known them anywhere.

We reunited over delicious food (hello - kim chee pork belly!) and a glass or two of fine drink. It was the best sort of reunion, the sort that demonstrates how the passage of time doesn't get in the way of true friendship. There was a little bit of catching up (how I became Catholic, how I met The Spouse, how they sojourned through seminary and child-rearing to end up co-pastoring a church in Iowa). There was a smattering of reminiscence (we agreed that we were all completely full of shit in college; except Steve who was slightly less full of shit and consequently able to occasionally slip in a dry, devastating remark that would put someone - at least temporarily - in his or her place). I shocked Sophie with the information that I had always been intimidated by her intelligence and she volleyed back that I intimidated her because I was "sooooo cool". And we agreed that it would be lovely if we could have seen ourselves back then as others saw us.

But mostly we talked about life and politics and faith and food and families. We laughed, a lot, and there were never any awkward silences or someone grasping to find a topic that might set us going again. There was no time, even, to regret that it had taken us this long to re-connect; only joy in the having done so.

I very often consider that I lead a charmed life. Not perfect life or a lucky life, but a charmed one, a blessed one. And one of the greatest and most consistent of those blessings is the friends who have come into my life and who, even with intervening time and distance, remain friends. Is there anything better? Kim chee pork belly, perhaps, but otherwise, I think not.