When you have been friends for the best part of six decades, you finish each other’s sentences, you have a lifetime of inside jokes, your sisterhood is seamless without any of the baggage one can accumulate with actual sisters. I miss her when I don’t see her, I want to talk to her more and be with her more. I’m almost possessive about our time together. We are like the same person, except of course we are not. She is a very busy and hard-working graphic designer, and we live on separate sides of the country (might as well be a different country), which we have been on and off for many years.
She was fished out of the boat pond in my hometown by my own mother — always the queen of the water watch, whichever body of water we found ourselves close to at the time. Though Lizzie would likely have quickly righted herself because the pond was not even 2 feet deep, the story of mother’s lifesaving went long and deep, so that our families not only became instant friends, we soon became actual neighbors in our little houses by the sea and we all became the very best of friends, especially Lizzie and me.
There are priceless photos of us growing up during the halcyon days of long summer holidays by the sea. Dogs, bikes, bleached hair and salty skin. We lived in a place where we could just safely roam all day and play in and out of the sea, on the beach, in and out of each other’s unlocked houses, actually wherever we darn well wished. Mother, as chief lifeguard, insisted that she always be present on the beach when we were in the sea, which was a lot, even when we were old enough to be able to rescue her. Other than that, we were free as seagulls on the wind.
I remember the day, years later, when her mother Jean rushed into my cottage unannounced and out of breath, “You have to come and talk to her, Lucy. She’s in America and I think… oh my goodness, I think she just got married…”
I got on the phone. “Well … what exactly have you done?” I asked her slowly, with sardonic humor and comedic pause, all those years ago. She had married the service man she met in our town years ago. He was now based in the U.S., she wanted to remain in the U.S. and work — if they got married, she could get a green card and stay. Two children and about 35 years later, they are still married; but at the time her mother Jean was beside herself with anxiety. Her plan had never been for her daughter to marry an American — no offense — she was hoping for a European architect, or even a classical musician would be acceptable, but an American soldier? Lizzie’s younger sister went on to also marry a serviceman from our hometown. Oh, we’ve laughed about that since. A lot.
While I have rather consistently lived over here for nearly 39 years — yes — she has lived back and forth across the pond. Her husband was based in Utah after they were married and then they got stuck there for a few years, after which they moved back to the U.K., Oxford, when he got out of the military, where they raised their children. As usual, when you have plans to move and especially, in our specific cases, moving back from one country to another, things take a lot longer than you hoped. Her mother was unwell for a good long while in Oxford, her younger sister was still living in America, and she needed to be Julie Brown on the ground in the U.K. Once mother had passed and all the usual palava of cleanup and property sales is completed, they fixed up their Oxford house to rent, put all their stuff in storage and finally made their move.
When I visited them in their small apartment in Annapolis, Md., Lizzie noted that she quite liked living the minimalist life in a simple flat with very little stuff to burden them with. After a lifetime of accumulation and 25 years in my house, I get that. I could not just up and out from this house. If we do ever move or move back, it will take several months, nay years, to sort out all our possessions and dump trailer the rest.
So now they are on the East Coast, she is close in geographical proximity to her sister, not so physically close to her real sister — me, ha ha — but travel has opened up so completely since we both first moved over here, that it is not really a big deal. When I popped over the country to Maryland, it was an easy five-hour flight, direct. Quite different to my usual 11-hour long haul from San Francisco to London with an eight-hour time difference.
She promised me we would meet up often now we were both on the same land mass. I visited their home in Annapolis. She visited Cali to attend my daughter’s wedding. I had always wanted her to show me New York City since she had worked there as a graphic designer and knew it well. “Once your knee is better, we will go,” she said. And this week we are going. We are really going. Bucket-listing. Meeting up on Thursday lunchtime at the Martinique hotel on Broadway, we have all kinds of fascinating things planned. From a Broadway show, to the 9/11 museum and memorial, Ellis Island, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hispanic Institute of Art, the Frick and now Comedy Night somewhere fun, I am sure I will return to my home after our long weekend of fun, full to the brim with all the energy and exuberance I have heard NYC can supply a person who is open to her gifts. I may also sleep for a week straight.
We haven’t even had our time together yet and already I’m thinking about where we will go next and then where the following time. It is so fun to think about and plan, while we can and still want to. We have talked about Chicago, also New Orleans … now North Carolina looks like it may also happen.
She gave me a card recently that touted “Friendsies Til the Endsies” and I know we will be. I’ll let you know what happens in New York and how much we laughed when things didn’t go exactly according to plan. Sometimes those can be the very funnest of times and most memorable. Girls time in NYC. Blizzard, move on out, we are coming in!
“The South Lookout – Our Aldeburgh Childhoods” is co-written by Lizzie and me and designed by her. It is an amazing romp through our blissful childhoods by the sea during the ’60s and ’70s. The book is available at Amazon.com and River House Books in Carmel.
