Blue eyes

Yesterday I saw a friend I hadn't seen in 6 years.  Today in a  quiet moment, I recall how we take things for granted when we're with people who we call 'friends'.   Friends because we like being with them, there's an ease, friends because it becomes a habit of calling back and forth and eating b'fast on the weekend days during grad school, friends becasue not only do we bump into each other in the hallways and classrooms but because we spend hours talking about what art we can't stand or what we love and tease in between, friends who collaborate, collaborators who become friends.  I remember one of the first nights out with this friend, we were in the Saugus Cafe, rickety authentic side of the road cafe on the way to Saugus.  Cracked booth seats, jukebox contraptions on the table, coffee in those small thick mugs that gets cold fast, greasy potatoes that I love.  Andrew is a vegetarian and so was I at the time so we made fun of the menu and of roger, who squeezed into the booth with us and rolled his eyes.  Oklahomo.  Or wait, was he making fun of us?  Groaning cuz he was going go have to endure our persnicky diets?  We all became very good friends in grad school.  Out of school, we still maintained our connections but it wasn't daily.  We didn't bump into each other anymore.  Efforts had to be made.  Visiting him in Hollywood required parking the car and that was a pain in the ass.  Slowly those plans got eroded and then Andrew was gone, got a job in Indiana, moving up and out into 'academia' while I opted for yoga immersion, escape hatch out of 'swimming upstream in the art world.'  

Yesterday I picked up Andrew at Union Station.  I saw a guy sitting on a bench with shorts on.  Ever youthful, even into his early 40s now.  Same.  He hopped in my car and teased me about almost running over pedestrians that I didn't notice because i was looking for him.  The gal on the bench next to him noticed however and was like, 'why's she honking like that?'  I wasn't honking at the pedestrians I didn't see, I was honking at Andrew, on the bench.  When we got to my studio, we both took off our sunglasses and I felt a little self-conscious.  Would he notice all my wrinkles now?  We're here at that point.  And I looked at him, really looked at him, and was fascinated by the blue of his eyes.  Those eyes that I didn't really see years ago.  We were too busy instead looking into our own thoughts, our ideas, our plans,  but not into each other.  Not like this.  It's more relaxed now, but more poignant.  He's just visiting.  And somehow, I'm coming upon the fact that we're all just visiting all the time.  And how the only thing I can really do about this or want to do about this ...is sit and look and deeply admire.