Yesterday a friend of mine had a birthday. I called her. She lives on the island of Sylt, in the North See, right before Germany and Denmark. We chatted for a good long time about all kinds of things. The kids, her plans for the future, the grandchildren, the USS New York, which will be commissioned on Saturday, her plans for a vacation on Teneriffe in February, the political situation and our youth. --- that sounds really funny, saying 'our youth'. We became friends when we were both in a small theater group, we were both 16, and just starting out practicing being adults.
She got married when she was 18, had two sons right away, and we stayed friends across all that time. Yes, we talked about her ex-husband also. She volunteers at a suicide hot-line, and tells me the problems people call with are so familiar - she often thinks that she has been in that situation and handled it in her way.
She's given me a book about Germany after the war, with photos, and it is as if my childhood is right before my eyes. We talked about that as well. That we grew up having nothing, and we didn't know it.
This morning my daughter called. She took the day off - kids are off school, teacher's conference - and she was going into the city with three other mothers and eight kids total. On the plan was maybe touring the USS New York, or, if the weather was bad, the Museum of Natural History.
I hope they go see the ship.
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