“Friendship is so fragile. It shatters the heart with a word, it’s so difficult to maintain … it can vanish over time, as if it were never there.” Vivian picked up her glass and toasted Susie with it.
“It’s only friendship, Viv … friendship that hides it’s head in the sand for a bit, and then, pops up and gets an ‘all clear’… so it comes out again and lies in the sun. But, then, the rain comes purging down and friendship gets mad and says ‘I’ll never come out again.’ But then, it does … because someone stands over it and says ‘please, I need you.’ ‘I miss you.’“
Some words from my novel Faith Among Friends that will be published in a few months. The book is a bit nostalgic, based on the wispy sketches of old friends. Once I was in the theater and life was quite a drama and love was forever painful and sex was an obsession. That’s pretty much what Faith Among Friends is about – Lies that were never necessary and loyalties that shifted like the wind and memories that bubble up and burst back into time so softly that they can no longer be seen but they tickle you still. Memories that are softened by years of gaining too much, losing too much, finding too much joy without recognizing it, knowing too much grief without showing it. I miss being young when it all hung out and I did not censor myself and my friends looked deeply into my eyes and wondered who I was. If I were to fall into the icy streams of upstate New York the whispers of my old friends will remain, gentle wind songs of memory. I cannot decipher the words so I invent them. I cannot interpret their meaning so I rewrite them as love songs. And If I were to fall into the icy waters of upstate New York my songs will carry me home. There was a time when friends read my Tarot cards, believed in the ghosts of my past and kissed away my illusions and my misconceptions. I miss being young. I never thought I would lose anyone or anything. I believed you were your word. I believed this glorious time would be forever. I knew my friends were the substance, they were the life line. So if I fell into the icy waters of upstate New York I would not perish, I would not die. I would remain in the foolishness of youth and I would be held afloat forever by the bonds of days gone by.
