Deborah Forster

I never know how cold it will be outside, but I always fancy the worst from the skies and the roads and the winds. I still dress with too many layers even though I have a coat that makes me look like the Michelin Man. I have three pairs of gloves given to me by loved ones. Possibly, I never really learned to dress properly because clothes didn’t seem important. And this goes on. I tried a beanie last year but in it, I looked like a suet pudding.
I love and hate the cold but prefer it to the heat which is just outrageously uncomfortable. In winter, the evenings come in so early and each night a solitary winter bird calls. The way the garden handles the rain is consummate, so watering is easy. Plants keep growing, slow and steady.

Winter means going to bed early to read and that feels like a feast. To be alone with books hasn’t been this joyous for years and lately, I read almost a book a day. I’ve been waiting for this. The last time I could read like this was before I was 13. Then things changed as they always do and the books had to wait for weekly visits.

It was windy when I saw my friend down at the supermarket, the red leaves were winding themselves into cones. The shop is on a little island in the traffic, with almost no parking spaces so I go out the back. It’s always a challenge. That day, men were standing on a cherry picker yelling about fixing something way up high. You never remember the force of the wind until it comes slapping at you, and you never remember the roar of men’s voices until you go to the football. My ears can’t take it anymore.
I was in my ponderous puffy coat, even though it was milder than the weather report had suggested, so I already felt a bit hot. Of course, being in something you don’t usually wear will guarantee you’ll meet someone from the past. Well anyway, I had a shopping list in my head but as soon as I walked into the slicing doors of the shop, the list came loose from my brain and those scarcely remembered things became free and flew away: a light globe, grapes and frozen pastry and milk.
And the reason they went was because I came upon my friend G in there. Grace bubbles up sometimes and greets us mysteriously even in empty supermarkets at 2.30 pm in the grey gutter of wind. And such joy lasts. We huddled in an aisle by the soft drinks, with me sweating away in my antarctic parka. She was in something more suitable for the day, a lovely pale grey raincoat, and we talked about our children and how they were. Then about how the grandchildren were and I remembered that this woman had always helped me, had never corrected or urged me. She had always just quietly been there and been the guiding light I’d needed. We made pickles and cakes for the kinder and primary school sales and went with the kids on excursions to the museums. I read to the grade twos on Tuesday mornings. I see it now, life was better then than I thought.
I was a timid drinker anyway but when I stopped, due to medication and continued going to dinner parties ( back when they were all the rage) without it, the dullness was fully exposed. And I found myself rubbing my eyes at old jokes. And so the friendship group shrinks. And you just slowly stop accepting invitations. Some people can handle it, others can’t. There’s always the supermarket catch-up though.
The love we feel for friends is comfortable and anchored and asks nothing and is there during the good times and the bad. Joni Mitchell says in her song ‘People’s Parties’ ‘There’s laughing and crying, you know it’s the same release’. And a good friend gets both.
My old friend G, has many friends but she always made room for me and my choices.
G is stylish, kind, funny and full of news of the best books, positive and empathetic and though I’ve known her nearly forty years, we just don’t socialise as much anymore. I think we’re not alone.
I see many people down at the dog park keeping a (very) loose eye on their dogs’ furtive evacuations while they’re talking animatedly and that does them for socialising. And as the afternoon closes, it’s off we go home in our puffy jackets, slowly walking tired dogs through red and yellow leaves.
It’s interesting how we manage these things. A and I went out the other night and there were big tables of people laughing at everything the host said. The food was okay. It’s nice to have someone to cook for you and the restaurant, grey with soft amber lights on the walls, felt like home. Trams passed like lighted rooms. And in it, a few people at a time were being taken home through the pewter evening.