Old Friends

I'm a bit addicted to finding new music on the web- mostly indie singers, and especially women. One particular blog I look at recently featured a couple of great songs by a woman named Sylvie Lewis. One of the songs, "Old Friend" sort of sums up how I'm feelig this Christmas. (If you are so inclined, you can download it here)

My Uncle Craig recently started a new blog of his own. I guess his nieces and nephews were saying so much that he decded to toss in his two cents. This morning I woke to his latest post, which also summed up the melancholy that I've been feeling.

My family never had Christmas on Christmas Day. Every year we would write Santa and tell him that he needed to come a few days early because we were going to go visit our family in Oklahoma for Christmas and we wouldn't be at home on Christmas day. Santa was very accomodating. And why wouldn't he be? I always figured that this was (of course) how Santa got all the presents out in time- he had enough people traveling for Christmas that he would spend several nights delivering presents, and thus, no one night rush (Duh)!

Anyway, the result is that we spent Christmas with my extended family until I was 21 or 22 years old. It's only been in the last few years that I have stayed in Tennessee, or gone to visit my in-laws (wherever they might be) over the Holidays.

This year Josh and I intended to try to go to Oklahoma to visit everyone. This year it seemed especially important. I wanted to see my family- all of them, especially my Grandma and my Great Uncle Joe, who I haven't seen since Christa's wedding.

But this year I am about to transition into a new job and Josh has limited time off, and we're going to visit Jack and Carole in Colorado (yay- snow at Christmas!) and... it's not going to happen. I don't really think I want to see my Granny's house empty anyway.

I keep looking at the pictures that my Uncle Craig took. We'd just gotten home from the funeral and the wind was really blowing hard and we all just stood out there watching the storm coming and coming. When it did finally come it was cold and the rain would come right up under the porch to soak your feet and legs. What my insides couldn't express came out in the violent wind, thunder and lightning. I stood out there a long time. Looking at those pictures feels like looking at old diary entries. It wasn't a rain that washed me clean, it was the beginning of a long journey.

Old Friends
The next time we meet we will be Old Friends.
We'll stand on the street laughing like old friends
Time will be kind, you won't have changed
your smile will be exactly the same.
One day we'll meet,
but we don't know when,
drink coffee and tea just like two old friends
you'll tell me your stories and I'll tell you mine
and we'll wonder at the passing of time.
No one can take your place
no one fill the space you leave when you go.
If we should lose touch you will not lose my love.
We'll catch up. Somewhere down the road... down the road
I hope you'll agree we'd make good old frieds.
If it were up to me that would be my goal, friend.
We'll take stock of one (?)in rooms full of song,
And we'll be old friends if I'm not wrong.
We'll be old friends before too long.