Connection

Just before Christmas, we took Inigo to carols at Pearl Beach. Just a small community event, run as a fundraiser for the local playgroup and the rural fire service.

We plonked down our blanket, opened up our (Lebanese) pizza boxes, and watched the show. Just before it started, some people put a blanket down beside us, and I was immediately distracted. It looked like my old friend John had married and had kids. But I hadn’t seen John in the better part of 20 years….

John had been a really good friend. One of my favorite people ever. A friend that had helped me to define who I was. What I thought was important. How awesome Pink Floyd was. That kind of friend. And 20 years is a long time. And recently, Ive been through some serious shit. And its really hard to initiate that conversation.

But John was a really good friend, so I stood up on my wobbly legs, and had the conversation, and met his kids, and his lovely wife. And we agreed to catch up soon. Soon took a while, but we did it today.

John and I worked out that we lost touch with each other some time around the early 1990s, maybe 1992 or 93. Around that time, I loaned him two of my favorite books, with an admonition that he MUST return them.

Today, almost 20 years later, he gave me my books back.

P.S. For those that needed to know, the books were Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson. Despite wanting everyone to think that I am an intelligent and literate bibliophile, I was WAY into Cyberpunk back then. Hmm… I still am. In another weird co-incidence, the book I am reading now is “Snowcrash” by Neal Stephenson, which many would say is the inheritor of the king of the genre. A lot has happened since Neuromancer was published, and many would say it is quite visionary. I wonder if the same will be said of Snowcrash in years to come.