Suzy and I met as freshmen at Grinnell College in Iowa. She was from a suburb of Cleveland and I from a farm in Northwest Missouri. We decided we wanted to be roommates the following year. We remain friends still after all these years even though we usually live far apart except for a brief time when we both lived in Rhode Island. She married David Rinaldo, who attended Grinnell with us. At least once a year one of us goes to see the other. We seem able to pick up conversations as if we had just talked a few hours before. Last year my daughter, grandson, and I drove to California and spent five days with them. This year they will come to see me. We remain the perfect example of that trite phrase, best friends forever, BFF. On the left side of my fireplace a tiny painting she gave me when we were in college still hangs. I wrote this poem about it last year.
The Gift
On the wall for forty years,
a copy of some famous painting:
almost everything a strange dark
shade of blue, a blue not quite
blue, the merest hint of green,
antique cupboard, curved table
base, ladder back chair, window
frame, even the tree outside.
The only exceptions:
white table cloth,
newspaper in the lady’s hands,
her pale pink floral dress with tiny
darker pink flowers,
large copper antique teapot
in the cupboard, the black and copper
pots on top. Her teacup, saucer, plate
of toast, white and blue, an old Danish pattern.
I’ve kept the gift,
hung on too many walls to count.
My college roommate, the giver, said,
“This reminds me of you.”
I look at it, all these years
have wondered why.
We’re still friends.
I’ve never asked.
Two years ago I expected to spend Christmas alone–too much snow. Friends and family came anyway. We ate, sang, laughed. They did not tell me for two weeks how it took them two hours to negotiate my long drive to the main road. No snow this year, not here–prediction remains 60 degrees F. Now these friends are far away: Europe, Mexico. My daughter and grandson will be here; we will miss my son.
writingontherim 