Sometimes you receive a gift that is not expected – not foreseen, not anticipated in any way. That happened to me this week. I was given the gift of returning to my youth just as we have all dreamed: “knowing what I know now”...My best friend in college came for a long overdue visit – it’s been 45 years since we graduated and in that time we’ve only seen each other twice before this week.  Against all odds we fell right into the same easy relationship we’d had four decades ago.  

Although we came from very different backgrounds, we were drawn to each other by our similar view of the world – one that was totally and comically warped (an all-female college already facing obsolescence). The world was warped, not we! We just laughed and acted crazy. Although she loved Belmondo and I loved Bogarde, we equally lusted after Tony Perkins in Phaedra.

The great films of post-war Europe beckoned us to run away – run away from Peter Pan collars and Pappagallo shoes and engagement rings and hangovers and pseudo-folkies. 

Forty years later we have raised a bunch of kids, had great loves and lovers, and seen rather more of sadness and pain than we’d admit even to each other. But for three days we laughed at exactly the same things (Owen Wilson playing Woody Allen), lusted after the same actor (Jon Hamm), ate way too much really good food, shopped and talked politics and agreed that indeed, the word is totally and comically warped. Still. And we are best friends forever, still.