Published: May 29, 2008 08:09 am         

Hawthorn Hill

By RICHARD J. deROSA

An old and valued friend stopped by yesterday to say hello and to pick up a few daylilies. We did not have too much of a chance to chat, to catch up, but the few moments we did have were precious and memorable.

In the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I had an essay to write, that I was in procrastination mode as usual, and that by nightfall, after a full day working in the gardens, the best idea among those trapped in memory might come to the fore. It took a full night’s sleep for that to happen. I did not bounce out of the sack this morning, but by the time I made it through a few cups of coffee and a short walk with Gabby, it became clear to me that my friend Carolyn and the meaning of friendship were what I really wanted to think about in writing this week.

We go back a long way. I taught at Owen D. Young Central school for several years, two of the best years of my teaching life. I left only because an opportunity came up to chair an English department within 18 miles of New York City, and that made continuing my doctoral studies in the city more feasible. Three years later, I decided that being away from home and family all weeklong was contrary to the reason we had moved upstate in the first place, so I returned home and finish my beloved teaching career in several local schools, the last at Fort Plain for 18 wonderful years.

Carolyn was the librarian at Owen D. Young. Actually, I have always been drawn to librarians. As keepers of humanity’s storehouse of knowledge and thought, they hold the keys to a universe infinite in possibility and value. We hit it off right away.

One never knows precisely why a friendship develops. Often during my life, I have looked back on a particular friendship, each different, each valued for different reasons. I have a few friends whom I have not seen in years, yet they are always present in my mind. Their presence is not necessary for their significance to be felt on a daily basis. Carolyn’s keen and incisive intelligence, her love of books, and her warmth and genuine concern for all of us, faculty and students, snagged me forever right from the start. I still think often of our conversations, about books, ideas, and life in general. There are some very extraordinary people tucked away in these hills! While I taught at ODY for only two short years, and have many fond memories, when I do think of my time there it is Carolyn I think of most.

Several years ago, while having dinner in town, I bumped into Carolyn’s son. I had not seen him in years. At ODY there were so few of us, both students and faculty, that there was always a good chance a student would be saddled with the same teacher, especially in English, for three out of four high school years. That was Jason’s burden, one he shared with countless others. But we got on well, read some good stuff, wrote far more than most students would have preferred, and generally had a good time, despite muffled protestations from time to time about the demands being more college-like than high school-like.

At any rate, when we were catching up he reminded me that the first book he ever really read through, cover to cover, was Richard Adams’s “Watership Down,” one that he values to this day. It is also one of my favorite books, one that I encouraged each of my children to read. There are several authors this old teacher will always be grateful to because their books, always accessible to the most reluctant of readers, have opened so many doors without sacrificing intellectual rigor.

Despite the shortness of our visit yesterday, Carolyn threw a few titles at me, suggested some essay topics, and then closed by suggesting that aging is not such a bad thing after all, and that since the present is all there is one has no choice but to make the most of it. She characterized it as life’s dessert. We agreed about that, and I pointed out that my own perception of time was unalterably changed after reading a Borges short story many years ago. In it, a tribe describes the past as a present recollection and the future as a present hope.

Standing there watching her drive off, I thought about the infinite march of meaningful presents in my life and how this one, just a brief spot of time, as Wordsworth puts it, does indeed have a renovating virtue.

Friendships endure over time by virtue of their lasting value.

I have seen Carolyn no more than four or five times since leaving ODY. But she has been very present in my life since first captured by her kind heart so many years ago. Sitting here writing this morning I think of other friends I have not seen in years and perhaps never will again.

It would be nice, but it does not matter. They are, and always have been, present in my life and mind.

There is, after all, a necessary distinction between loneliness and being alone. It is true as one writer recently put it, that we enter the world alone and we leave it just as alone. But that does not mean we are lonely or that we are without friends.

As I ply my way through this mystery we call life, I am immeasurably thankful for the friendships that have buoyed me, kept my soul afloat. Even Odysseus could not have made it without help.