old friends who one day
recede, disappear, never
to be seen again
The parade keeps moving, that’s why they call it a parade.
It was the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus who said or at least is credited with saying, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
It was Michigan’s own, the late great Jim Harrison who said you can’t enter the same stream once let alone twice.
The water keeps moving.
We live with change.
As the times change, we change with the times.
And old friends, as comfortable as old shoes, recede and disappear.
Change jobs.
Change locations.
Change situations and old friends, as comfortable as old shoes, recede and disappear.
Sad to say but it happens.
Friendships, relationships take a lot of work to keep those ships a float.
And sometimes the work just gets too hard.
“Conversely,” writes Julian Fellowes in his book, Snobs, “nothing is more agreeable than the renewal of such a friendship after several years’ interlude, as there is no need for the preamble to intimacy.
It is already in place.
One may immediately pick it up, like a piece of unfinished tapestry, where one left off ten years ago.“
For me, one of the many pleasures of reading, is to come across a phrase like this and say to yourself, “I know just what he means.”