The Buzz of Living

My friend Dee and I wait in the freezing dark at 10:30 PM for a #66 Downtown. My bus, not hers. She is wearing a long blue winter coat she purchased in 1964 that is designed for photographers so has a lot of inside pockets. "Ideal coat for shoplifting," she says wryly. I have my mittens over my ears because my stocking cap doesn't quite cover them. We have just spent the evening at her art-jumble house talking about films and writing. She read an exquisite essay written by a friend about being an art student in her twenties in the 30's in Cincinati. A free spirit, even sexually. "I thought all women were repressed then," I said. "Many of us weren't," Dee said. "Hundreds of us." I look at her face alight with the buzz of living and think there isn't anything better than having a friend in her eighties, who admittedly "has only a shred of maternal energy left" in her, but is willing to spend some of that shred on me.