Friendship

When I look back, I know that the good feelings, of security and light-heartedness have washed out any feelings I must have had of sadness, fear, or boredom.   I was never bored.  There was so much to do, even when I was alone:  arrange my plastic animal collection in new ways;  draw; use my Fashion plates;  dress and undress my Barbies; make blanket forts; play with matchbox cars in our little yard, making roads in the dirt.  And that was just what I could do alone.

 With a friend, we could play wall ball, army, jump and squeal in the sprinkler; practice cartwheels;  the possibilities were endless.  With a friend in the wide red leather back seat of my mom’s enourmous Pontiac, everything was fun.  Whatever music played on the radio was what we listened to and sang along to.  Errands.  To the supermarket, to the drugstore, it didn’t matter.  With a friend, it was just background to endless conversations and sharing.  Sharing sugar dot candies from paper strips;  sharing and trading glittery-plastic jelly bracelets, sharing stickers, sharing barettes and banana clips;  sharing secrets:  who we thought was “cute” and what we dreamed about, and what we over heard our parents fight about.  Through the frigid grocery store isles, our conversations would continue, or our dances, or jokes that only we thought were funny.  It really didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing, a good friend was enough.