"Tea & Surviving" – 3/27/20

When I picture us there, finishing
Each other's sentences
Flushed with satisfaction from
Yoga's hard won glow
I see us as if from overhead
As though my memory is a GoPro
I am attached to the ceiling and I
Witness us laughing, confiding, understanding

As only great friends do
I remember the day we met
There was nothing obvious about us
Separately that would seem to have cued

Our friendships' swift evolution
From admiring each other's graceful form
In a class geared not toward achievement
But toward individual and collective healing

We went for juice next door and before
We knew it we were "yoga besties"
You are a scientist and I am a musician
You love music and I'm charmed by intelligence

You are down-to-earth but discerning
You are accountable and evolved
I'm an empowered boss but goddess knows
I am always and forever learning

When I think of us standing in line
At any one of our favorite neighborhood haunts
I imagine you looking up at the menu
A woman who quickly knows what she wants

I have more trouble making decisions
I worry more about what may be "in it"
Sugar causes fear, carbs cause trepidation
You make healthy choices but know how to let go

You love beer, maybe a little to much you've said
You lost a friend to alcoholism, you wondered
What if anything you could have done or seen
I listened, consoling you but mostly just listening

We have confided a lot since that first time
You sat next to me on your yoga mat
That class was on the Upper West Side
When you're a cancer surviver traveling is nothing

We have both been so used to taking the subway
Uptown and downtown and everywhere required
For protocols advised, interventions prescribed
But yoga was elective, extra credit, all our own

I am proud of our friendship and I want you to know
I am proud of how we are surviving this now
Not as cancer patients or within respective
(and sometimes taut) relationships

But because I know you are being careful
I know you are being smart and that
For you, surviving had already become
A beautiful, admirable, impressive fine art

I have looked up to you all this time
Despite being significantly your "elder"
And looked forward each week (or as often
as we could) to our confiding's splendor