Ode to Old
I'm getting a little long in the tooth. I'm okay with that as it means having a friend of almost 40 years to share this life with. Ode to Old I say!
I met Stacey ( aka Stazzy, or Stazzlo ) at age 6 when I was on a walk with my dog in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri and I walked into her cul-de-sac on Quantok Court. I declared that I was new to the neighborhood and had a younger sister named Caroline. She declared she also had a younger sister named Carolyn. Since we could forevermore pluralize our sisters names thus referring to 'The Carolines' we decided to become best friends.
The four of us had a lovely childhood thanks to our moms also becoming close friends and filling our summers with adventures.
So when I found out Stacey had a bit of time between jobs on her hands - I sent a message asking if she'd like to meet us in Guatemala next month. She said yeah, that sounds good. It seemed too easy and good to be true, but we made it happen! One of the things I admire about our long friendship and Stacey is when she says yes to something she means it.
Like when she says yes to popsicles on the porch or water fights. Why don't we adults have water fights any more?
We've all grown up of course, all been married and went to each others weddings and scattered around the country, sometimes our lives crisscrossing again. Stacey in black here, me in green, and the Carolines.
What could be a better place to explore together for a week than Antigua, Guatemala for us old ladies who grew up watching Golden Girls together?
I had no idea that Antigua had ruins of churches all around the city, an earthquake in 1773 leveled much of the city that was once the capital of Guatemala.
Being it was the third time Antigua was destroyed, the capital was then moved to the safer location about one hour away in Guatemala City in 1776.
Many of the ruins were left and with a small entry fee for upkeep we could explore the old churches, convents, and jails.
The crumbled ruins were a treat to explore, maybe symbolic much like Stacey and I's shared Catholic school days. Beautiful to look at, but also no longer standing like our blind faith once had attending mass 6 days a week growing up.
All that exploring has us saddling up to a hole in the wall ceviche place, so so good!
And enjoying a cooking class together where we made 5 dishes including the first time we've made tortillas and pepian - a famous Guatemalan stew of roasted ingredients.
We were then treated to some live action Catholic celebrations in the lead up to Holy Week. 'Carpets' were laid in the closed streets in a couple hours for a coming parade complete with floats and incense telling the story of Jesus.
The procession moved slowly thru Antigua for hours with purple robed folks carrying in silence and penance....
And then these guys sweeping it all up to return the streets to their normal state.
Between all our exploring of these cobblestone streets (hard on our old knees) we relaxed with some boardgames and reading time. It filled my heart to look over on the couch at our airbnb and see Stacey and Gordon both reading. No need to fill our time with words at every moment, and that's part of the beauty of old friendships, you don't have to prove anything or be anyone you aren't and can read a good book when you want! I feel so damn fortunate that even at 6 years old we can choose such friends of outstanding character, smarts, depth, and love.
Maybe next time Stace will be up for sharing her Wuzzles game with us? (first communion)
Keep striking that pose beautiful Stacey! Thank you for coming all the way down here and being a part of my life's history and soul.
