lughs prompts 48 Creative

[Lugh]

Write about the moment you and another person bonded.

[Cia]

I could write about so many of the bonds in my life. My parents... no. My husband? One of a kind moment for me but in a literary sense it's been done. The moment I saw my children for the first time? Not something who isn't a parent can understand. The one bond that we've all had in life that stands out the most for me? The day I met my best friend Chrystal, or Chrys, as so many of you have heard me speak of her but never by her full name. I can't think of the last time I used it actually! I've taken some liberty with the dialogue, but it was a long time ago. The basic memory is there and the moment will always be one of the most significant in my life.

It was cold. I was sitting on the sidewalk under the covered area, up against the vent so I could feel the heat seeping out from inside the school building. Raindrops were dripping off and on off the edge but it wasn't too bad yet so we got to come back to the playground rather than stay in the gym after lunch. We'd been talking off and on since school started but the new girl looked sad.

 

"What's the matter?"

 

"I don't walk to talk about it." She slid down the wall to sit next to me. We both shivered when the wind whistled under the covered area.

 

"Hey, why don't we put our coats over us?"

 

We both pulled off our winter jackets and snuggled up close, putting them over us like blankets and trapping the air. This was the first time we were so close but it felt okay. We started talking and she told me about how she got a new family and pointed out her little brother who came with her. He was climbing up the tires nailed to the telephone pole and laughing like a little monkey.

 

I wrinkled up my nose, "He looks like a pest. My sister calls me a pest."

 

"Your sister?"

 

I pointed her out, the black haired girl with her big circle of friends on the swings.

 

She made a funny face. "You don't like like sisters. You have red hair."

 

"I know. She says my dad found me under a rock. It's not true though." I told her all about my dad and how I didn't have a mom. I did have an uncle, he looked just like my dad and of course my sister. I even got to point out our house, up the hill from school. We went back to the vent, shivering in our t-shirts.

 

She got to ride the bus home and she had horses!

 

"Want to come to my house sometime and see them?"

 

"Yeah!"

 

I went to her house and she came to mine a lot over the years until she moved 7 years later. We stayed in touch and still saw each other whenever we could con our parents into making the 45 minute drive. Sometimes we have lived close and sometimes we have lived a few hours apart but the friendship that cemented between us that cold fall day when we were 6 is still as strong as ever. Closer to me than most of my family, Chrys is the one person in the world who will always get me and who knows all my secrets. And I'll always do the same for her.

[Marzipan]

A bond - that is a tricky word.

 

In my mind a bond means mutual, nearly simultaneous recognizing of each other, a feeling of similarity or familiarity. It is not mere a friendship or a partnership or a family relationship. Sure it can happen within all of those. But for me a bond is much more than those. A bond can happen for a lifetime or it can be a passing moment between two people in everyday life when both realize the other person is alike, after which one will never feel alone again.

 

I felt this kind of bond not long ago.

 

It is always dangerous to make assumptions based on someone’s writing, just as it is dangerous to expect to know how others read what you write. Yet sometimes you write something that is not really meant for anyone specific and it is found by someone who takes it in her heart and makes it her own.

 

That happened to me. I read something; there were skirts and stockings, beautiful boys and tomboy girls involved in a sweet and confusing mix. I felt a connection to the stories by the mystery author and I was blown away; someone could put down in words just how I feel, exactly how I feel. I couldn’t let go, of course not, that is not in me.

 

I took a chance and I got to know the writer more and found a person with inner eyes like mine. He saw what was in me just as I saw in him; we became each other’s mirrors. We weren’t spooked with what we found out. The secrets and the truths shared were celebrated and thanked, not laughed or worse – dismissed.

 

Now, after few months of knowing each other, I can say that I found a friend.

 

We were bonded by the words written, by the meanings shared – meanings that are passing to others, cut in the flesh for us.

[comicfan]

It was the first day of class. I already felt out of place, having arrived early and getting coffee in the cafeteria. I had been surrounded by eighteen and nineteen year olds who all looked so young that at twenty seven I was already feeling like an ancient. Thank God, the college was a fairly small one and it was easy to get around.

 

The first class I had was one the Dean had suggested I take. There were going to be a group of core classes that approximately twenty students from different disciplines were going to take. The first one met Monday morning at seven am for Earth Science. There were six tables and a black board in the front of the room. I was early and the professor had just opened the door so he could get set up. I moved to the front table and sat down.

 

“I see I am not the only one who likes to be early,” came a gentle voice from across the table.

 

I looked up to find a woman who wasn’t a kid sitting down and opening up a tote bag to pull out her notebook and a pen. Her dark hair was shoulder length and framed her face. Her glasses helped to hide her smiling eye but she was already showing signs of life.

 

“Nope, habit with me. I hate to do things last minute. Name is Wayne,” I stated as I held out my hand.

 

“Lee. Nice to meet you. I was afraid I was going to be the only one.”

 

“Only one, what?”

 

“Only older student.”

 

Looking at her you didn’t immediately think older. She was sort of ageless, happy, and soon would be recognized as the Earth Mother to the whole group.

 

“Nope. But I don’t think you are all that much older.”

 

“Thirty one and ready to bet no one else comes close,” she laughed. It made her nose wrinkle up and we were just getting to know one another.

 

“Well, I am twenty seven if it makes you feel any better.”

 

“A little, anyway. I was afraid I would be the lone soul in a group of kids just starting out.”

 

“Not really. I decided after helping the umpteenth kid at work fill out their college application I could as well. Guess you can say I am just starting out again.”

 

“I'm in the process of starting over myself. Divorce will do that, and I figured an education will help me get what I want.”

 

As she picked up her coffee we watched the others arrive. It seemed all of a sudden as thought the flood gates opened as in groups of twos and threes the rest of the class seemed to arrive. All in all there were twenty of us and of that group three of us were considered older students. Besides Lee and myself there was also Donna who beat Lee by two years and also had a son.

 

From that first moment we had bonded. It was a friendship over something so simple as age and liking to be early. We stayed close friends for six years till her terribly short battle with cancer took her from this world. It is a bond I remember and still treasure.