Its Sunday morning – two weeks after the Event. How much work did you manage to get done this week? A little more than last week? I don’t know what your e-mail in-basket looks like, but I suspect its full of missives from Sconites.
If you haven’t done very much, or none at all you are not alone. The crazed fools who organized this party let time out of a bottle and we are all having issues with getting the cork back on.
For two weeks I’ve heard nothing but “Yeah, I’ve been busy, so much to catch up on, I might even have to make up an invoice”,.., well it just goes on and on.
The reunion has been an agenda item in the boardrooms of large multi-nationals. The source of some good stories at the coffee machine. Curiosity about the event has not been confined to your classmates – it picked up passengers along the way who are also checking in to hear what happened.
Last Friday night I half expected a call asking what we might do tonight, a call tinged with all the angst and anticipation of all those many Fridays so long passed. I think I’d like to go and see a movie or head down to Whitemud. There’s bound to be a party. Somewhere.
I spent the bulk of this past week in Vancouver and the Reunion just seemed to carry on out there. I had dinner with Vicki and Moira and having already bantered back and forth about the party via e-mail, we continued to reminisce over a big Chicken and Green Thai curry. Plans for a bigger dinner in November have been hatched. More people are expected.
The next night I caught up with Sanders Whiting who is producing a show and couldn’t get back for the Party. We got caught up, hauled out the Reunion photos and laughed and laughed again. A quick coffee with Donald Munro the next day re-established contact in the context of our current lives.
The smart ones among us got all of this Reunion Stuff out of the way early. They wrote their notes full of well wishes to everybody and – sensibly – went back to their lives. I suspect the rest of us, the ones who haven’t posted something here this week are still wrestling with it – still savouring it. Still wondering perhaps what it all means.
And so now we are all two. Two people that is. We are still our adult selves; loved by our partners and children, engaged in the here and now. But we’ve been to the reunion, too and it has brought back the past is a great flood of memories and emotions. All for the re-living.
I like this image of a mirror from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Dumbledore discovers Harry gazing at the Mirror of Erised, an enchanted mirror that reflects back that which the person standing in front of it desires most. Dumbledore counsels Harry not to linger too long in front of it lest he take leave of his sensibilities and languish helplessly in front of it.
I think I will continue to pay visits to the mirror for a while yet. The image reflected back two weeks ago isn’t quite the same as the one I saw yesterday. I take this as a good sign.
How about you?
