A Trip Back in Time

~~ For my wonderful and 'forever' friend, "N"~~

Last month I bumped into my best friend from grade 2 while visiting my parents for the Easter Weekend. “N” was back in town visiting family for the weekend as well and when we ran into each other at the local liquor store we let out a school-girl squeal and rushed forward into a bear hug that must have encompassed a few years. We stood back and scrutinized each other – and decided that, yes, we looked exactly the same as we did back in grade 2 ;0). Aside from a brief visit at the Winnipeg Folk Festival about 10 years ago we hadn’t seen each other since University days by which time we had pretty much gone our separate ways – I had moved to a different town after grade 10 and different majors had taken us in different directions -- our paths hadn’t crossed much after that.

Interestingly enough it wasn’t the University years we’d gravitated to, but the first time we met (in grade two) and our very formative early high school years. We began to reminisce while our husbands stood patiently to the side balancing bottles of wine and assorted liquors for our respective suppers that evening. From that point it was a breakneck race to try to catch up on close to 20 years of being apart…

Flash back to 1972…I had been transferred (accidentally) to a different public school on the other side of town. I’m not sure why my parents didn’t correct the change but they let it stand. I was quite nervous about changing schools – especially after three years with my current friends. But a little girl with dark brown braids decided she would be my friend. I have a very distinct memory of riding home one day on the school bus repeating “N”’s phone number over and over in my head so I wouldn’t forget it: 52-18-52-18. I barely remember my own phone number from those days let alone any of my other friends from that era. I’m not sure what it is that bonds young girls of that age but whatever it was we connected early in the year and formed a tie that has remained to this day.

Like most young girls we idolized the older kids. Our object of affection was a grade 6 boy named Graham. We wrote a song about him and I can still remember the melody and lyrics to this day. I’m sure we scarred him for life with our constant fawning.

“N” and I were, in my eyes, inseparable for that year and then inexplicably at the end of the year I was transferred back to my original primary school for grade three onwards. “N” and I spoke on the phone from time to time during the years leading up to high school, but we found little to say since we were no longer in the same school.

Fast forward to high school and we easily picked up where we’d left off. We had our boy-crushes there as well, even going so far as to join the cheerleading squad so we could be near the sports-teams. We decided to take up tennis and went to the local Canadian Tire store to pick up cheap tennis racquets and some balls. My first serve went way long over the fence and out of the tennis courts. The two of us fell down laughing and we realized shortly after that that we weren’t cut out for tennis. We even joined the cross-country running team…for about a week. There wasn’t much we wouldn’t try, at least once.

 We had nick-names for each other, based on the first syllable of our last names. On my birthday one year “N” called and told me to listen to the local radio station. Sure enough shortly after that call I heard the radio announcer wish a “Very Happy Birthday to The Swan from The Pack”. I burst out laughing because he had gotten it totally wrong and I joked later that “The Swan” had a much nicer ring to it.

 “N” and I shared a passion for writing and photography. We would take our Kodak Instamatic cameras out on walks and compose what we thought were magazine worthy photographs of light dappled streams or fields of wind-blown grass. We took many portrait shots as well, of “dreamy girl staring off into the distance” or “pensive girl sitting on a rock lost in thought”. The poems we wrote were angst-ridden and love-lorn or adjective-filled descriptions of nature.

We spent many afternoons using our creativity, making mixed tapes using a tape recorder and a record player, building funky snowmen and experimenting with makeup and costumes but most of all we laughed a LOT. And that is what I remember the most.

We had so much more to say that day in the liquor store. I discovered that she, too, had embraced running and with her husband had decided to try to run 25 half marathons before they were 50. She urged me to do the same…heck I’m only three short and I have a couple years to do it. Maybe one day we can run one together…

We exchanged phone numbers (I didn’t memorize this one) and e-mail addresses and vowed to keep in touch. We each have two teenage boys so I’m sure we will have plenty more to talk about.