Sun burnished friendship

So...we have just returned from a hot, humid and magical holiday in Singapore and Malaysia.

An escape from the Brexit trauma and the disheartening fogginess of lack-lustre leadership. 

Instead we wandered through the futuristic Marina Bay in Singapore, floated in a rooftop pool above the Kuala Lumpur skyline.

And watched the sun setting over the warn sea of Penang 

We drank the water from fresh coconuts and ate more delicious food  than most people get to eat in a lifetime 

The sun didn't stop shining and our spirits didn't stop soaring.

And that made the holiday fantastic.

We stayed with very special friends who have  a fish-filled pond in their living -room and an enormous swimming pool on its doorstep. 

And that made our holiday amazing.

But we met up too with some friends  from so long ago that it seemed almost as though I had dreamt them.

And that made our holiday truly magical.

The last time we spent a whole evening  together, whole weeks of wandering through Malaysia, was 31 years ago.  

A year after we left school.

31 years that seem to evaporate into no time at all, the moment we saw each other again.

Like treasure,  buried so long ago, its burnished beauty has almost been forgotten.

We brushed off the dust of time and found that friendship doesn't tarnish or waste away.  Instead we carried on where we had left off 31 years ago.  

Time seem to collapse into itself until we were almost sure that the things we remembered must only have happened yesterday.

Perhaps we were high on rose-tinted nostalgia.

Perhaps remembering made us feel young again.

Perhaps the glow of almost forgotten friendship made our hearts sing.

But I don't think it was just that

.

There is something about the friendships of our youth that always remain a part of us.

That have helped to form the very fabric of our being.

They are a piece of who we are and what we have become.

And finding that friendship again is like finding a part of yourself that you had thought was lost.

Suddenly the music of forgotten laughter is ringing in your ears.

You find yourself reaching out for those distant dreams  buried by the decisions you have made and the paths you followed.

And for just an instant, all things seem possible again.

While we were away, our son, Joss turned 17.

I look at him with pride and wonder at the young man he has become.

He is kind, caring, warm-hearted, determined and much wittier and more capable than I ever was.

But suddenly I remember being 17 again.

Because that's the age I was when I first met these friends.

Probably we were full of teenage angst.

Probably the future stretched before us, as full of fears and worries as glowing potential.

But all I remember, so many years on, is the pleasure we found in each other's company, and the knowledge that what we had was something special. 

I remember staying up all night talking earnestly about things that seemed so incredibly important that we could not let sleep get in the way.

I remember dancing at parties and pic-nicing in parks.

i remember laughing and crying and holding tightly onto every moment

And I remember so clearly thinking: "this is what it means to be alive."

I think perhaps you never experience again the intensity of the friendships you form as teenagers.

I see it with Joss and his friends now, the joy they find in simply being together.

The hedonistic afternoons spent on the beach or lying in the park.

They are growing up together, supporting each other as they dip their toes into the unforgiving ocean of adulthood.

" Is there more past or more future," the voice asks us over the microphone as we visit the " cloud mountain," that only Singapore could think of creating in a huge green house.

I ponder the question.

Obviously, environmentally, they are trying to show us that the future of the world is at stake unless we humans stop destroying it.

But I couldn't help taking the question more personally.

Obviously, at 50, I am most likely to have more past than future.

But somehow re-finding old friends makes the divide less clear.

Like an ever-growing patchwork quilt, our life lies all around us.

Sometimes the patches you find in front of you are bright and new and unexpected.

Sometimes they are delicate and transparent and as transient as mist.

And sometimes they are the  patches you started sewing so long ago that you are shocked at  how familiarly beautiful they are, how the patterns have not faded over time.

I look at our 17 year old son and hope that his life will be full of dreams-come-true and the music of laugher 

I hope that he finds what he is looking for and touches his dreams.

I hope that he never feels lost or alone.

But if he ever does, I hope his life has created a quilt , so bright and beautiful, that when he wraps it around himself the strength and  colour of love and never-ending friendship will keep him warm.

With an only-slightly-regretful wave, I say goodbye to my younger self.

It's time to weave old friendships into new patterns....all I need to do now, is learn how to sew.

August 1985

August 2016