A Tribute to Friendship

Once a friend, always a friend. Days, months, years pass, but true friendship picks up life where it was left off. Daunting time is overcome. Such is my company with Cork, as I affectionately call him.

Cork and I met incidentally while teaching in a 'nationally' reputed public school system. Cork took care of special education students, and I managed the dogma of science.

What makes Cork unique is the fact that he is down-to-earth, caring, and genuine. When my father passed away about two decades ago, he was there picking up the pieces of my depression. In his own casual but intentional ways, he distracted me from my thoughts and my loss of any desires.

When we talked, we expanded on life and death. At one end, I elaborated on my views that the universe is physical but that, at the same time, the farther we move away from physicality, the closer we get to spirituality. At the other end, Cork insisted on a universal occurrence: death marks the end of everything. [He confided that his sister had died in an automobile accident at a very young age.]

Life is cyclical, and Cork and I pick up life conversations over and over again. He repeatedly reminds me of how I really touched him when, one day out of nowhere, I said to my science students:

"Let me see the whites of your eyes. And… If I see the whites of your eyes, I might even touch your soul!"

That was the everlasting beginning of our friendship.

I admire Cork's insistent engagement in doing: running, biking, celebrating simple moments of togetherness. Literally, anything that anchors him to earth. But, if there is one item he would take along his life journey, it's a photo album of his family and friends.

Along Cork's same lines as Meursault, the protagonist of Camus' The Stranger, if I could take the memories of my life's moments compacted as dreams, I wouldn't mind dying. But, since there is no certainty in such an event, like Cork, I continue to add 'pictures' to my life's album.

Day by day, It is like starting life over again.

"Imagina que la vida es un sueño en color y, cuando estes despierto, sera en bianco y negro."

"Imagine that life is a dream in color and that, when you are awake, it will be in black and white."

Recently, Cork and I lived the 'sueño en color' listening to great jazz at the Lily Pad in Cambridge.

Another life moment in color for our respective photo albums.

Un ‘Omaggio all'Amicizia

Aristotele e Ulisse

Amici greci

Apuleio e Scevola

Amici romani

Camilleri e Falcone

Amici siciliani

Carter e Lincoln

Amici americani

X e Y

Amici nuovi

Pensieri e azioni

Passato antico

Presente vivo

Futuro sperato

Senza tempo

Senza spazio

Senza fine

‘Sueno en color’

A Tribute to Friendship

Aristotle and Ulysses

Greek friends

Apuleius and Scevola

Roman friends

Camilleri and Falcone

Sicilian friends

Carver and Lincoln

American friends

X and Y

New friends

Thoughts and actions

Ancient past

Present alive

Hoped future

Timeless

Without space

Endless

'Sueno en color'