promise

Dear Ones,

I am going to start posting small pieces from by book (project? manuscript?) a few times a week.

Reactions are welcome.

l

PS 87 Redux

re·dux

rēˈdəks,ˈrēˈdəks/

adjective

adjective: redux

brought back; revived.

 

Just about one month ago the phone rang in the middle of the afternoon and Dale answered it.  After listening intently to someone he smiled and handed the phone over to me saying "It's your friend from Elementary School -- Helen Epstein."

 

What?  How?  

 

I took the phone and it was as if 57 years evaporated in the space of 57 seconds.  

 

Helen didn't miss a beat telling me how difficult it had been to track me down.  Well, yes.  I've traveled under the radar for most of my life.  I've changed my name not once but twice.  And, of course, they were still looking for me using my maiden name.  That's all they had.

 

Somehow they found me.

 

Helen told me about the Reunion planned for May 7th back in  Manhattan.  I gracefully declined.  She asked if I would prepare a "Timeline" -- you know, a summary of my life since 6th grade.

Actually the timing of this request was interesting.  Some of my friends might call it synchronicity.  Others might just say "Hey Laura, the universe is trying to tell you something."  

I'm just encouraged.  After all that's gone on over the past 2+ years, life here is beginning to settle.  We are no longer making frequent trips to San Francisco.  Life has changed from being about illness to being about wellness.

Last December I had dusted off that manuscript I put away in 2013 with plans to return to it once again.  Here was a chance to write a very brief summary, now called a Timeline, and use that as a segue back into the larger work.

 

I  wrote the Timeline and it has been sent to my former classmates, along with a few others, to give them an idea of how they might address the past 57 years.  I've heard back from a few of the people I knew back then.  Wonderful, heartwarming notes (to which I have yet to respond but am ever so grateful to have received).

 

And I am limping back into my own manuscript.  With its ghosts. And revelations.  

 

The world is looking both much wider and narrower right now.

 

Thank you dear PS 87 friends for doing all that you did to find me.  I know it wasn't an easy task.  But I am filled with gratitude that you kept on looking for this woman who values her seclusion and shuns most forms of social media.

 

Voices from the past pointing me towards the future.