Group Hug

There were six of us. In the grand scheme of things, the years we spent together don't add up to much, but childhood friends are not easily forgotten.

By high school, we had broken ranks. Zoning glitches separated us physically, dispersing us into various schools where we each faced intimidating crowds of unfamiliar faces. Even for the three of us who ended up in the same place, the lure of new friends loosened our clingy grip on the old. We pursued different interests, different people, different paths. Though we always retained some tenuous connection, we were no longer, and never again to be, a group of six.

Never, that is, until there was Facebook. Some of us have been in touch for a while, and have already caught each other up on the past thirty something years. Love, loss, success, disappointment; we all offer different versions of the same story. Eileen, Ellie, Jill (the real Jill), Mimi, Robin, and I, the six uncertain girls who used to walk to Hebrew School together twice a week, walk the mile together to junior high every day (uphill both ways, naturally), reconvened last night. The most elusive one, Robin, had finally been located (in Australia of all places) and we trickled into the on line chat just as we used to trickle into the lobby of Jill's apartment building each morning for our trek to school.

We floated notions of a reunion. A trip to Australia in January seemed appealing to some of us stuck here in the northern hemisphere. I suggested we meet to celebrate Mimi's birthday, which happens to be tomorrow, but that probably won't work. Someone else suggested we meet on the bench lined bike path on Ocean Parkway, the street on which we grew up. Is it possible that we've become the old ladies who sit on the benches watching the kids play? Frightening. We traded recollections of long forgotten pranks, scores that were never settled. Our good natured prattle was filled with implicit forgiveness, and a longing to reconnect with the ones who knew us when. Robin rattled off all of our birthdays. I can't remember my own phone number, but, those birthdays are permanently embedded in my brain.

Life has tossed us all over the globe, but, unlike many Facebook connections, the ones that seem cool for a moment but actually remind you why you lost touch in the first place, this one has warmed my heart. Whether it's winter in Australia or summer on a bench in Brooklyn, a reunion with my first group of friends would be like coming home.