Old Friends (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

What if, at some point not all that distant in my life's future, I become old enough that this photo illustrates the day's adventure?
My response to anyone commenting upon my piling up of the years has always been to point out that I knew no other option, or at least none other which seemed worth risking today.

More than thirty years ago, I enjoyed the beautifully simple melody and the somewhat melancholy, but not at all despairing lyrics and music which is Paul Simon's Old Friends. Then, it seemed like a song about a time as foreign as could be, perhaps about a different tribe or another country.

Sure, I could see the folks in my neighborhood who had reached a certain age, that age where things of the simplest sort, even getting your newspaper from the driveway, has become a significant event. In some cases, a difficult one to complete.

But it was so alien to me, and I wondered then how in the world people could find it difficult to walk. It is such an easy and natural movement, after all!

Now, I am much closer to those who feel "terribly strange to be 70" than I do to that young man who could not fathom having any problem walking. I get it now. In fact, I retrieve the newspapers for my next-door neighbors on both sides each morning from their driveways and leave them within reach of their front doors only to make their lives just that one iota less of an effort, and to let them know, every single morning, that someone has already thought of them, that very day.

I cannot begin to tell you how touched I was when, in visiting my neighbor while his family sat shiva for his departed wife more than a year ago, he introduced me as his "newspaper boy." I am honored to be of service and for him to recognize it so sweetly: his 54-year-old newspaper boy.

Whether it be brought on by fond memories of listening to this song or looking forward to the day when I could star in the music video, I don't know, but today, I leave you the image (a random one from the internet, shown above) and the lyrics of Old Friends. Best to all of you, this, my Sacred Life Sunday for April 6th, 2008.


Old Friends

Old friends,
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends.
A newspaper blown though the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends.

Old friends,
Winter companions,
The old men
Lost in their overcoats,
Waiting for the sunset.
The sounds of the city,
Sifting through trees,
Settle like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends.

Can you imagine us
Years from today,
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy.
Old friends,
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fears...