Circling Round Our History

The opportunities we have to revisit our lives come along in unexpected ways.  Visiting old friends in places we used to live is a bit like finding one's old journals in a long lost trunk-only four dimensional and more animated.  I'm visiting a place from my past.  I sit with my friend in her daughter's home.  She is visiting here, too.  Visiting her past, and her present and her future (a new great grandson just arrived).  I am struck by what I have forgotten and what I remember.  It seems I can give names to people I haven't thought about for thirty years, but can't remember appearances of buildings and places (unless it's food related).

We pick up where we left off from our last connection and circle round catching up on adult children, husbands and grand kids, then our conversation skirts around the edges of stories from the past.  They come into focus, my friend helping me remember who and what and where about a few particular years in my life.  All these whos, whats and wheres that led to a major change in my geography, my partner and my work.  Now I have a chance to circle round and let hindsight have her say.