The Address Book

When I moved from Michigan eleven years ago, I thought I should get a new address book. Mine, with its myriad crossed out names, certainly had seen its day. Its lovely collaged cover reminded me of the sunny day a close friend and I had wandered in and out of the shops of a quaint Hudson River town. Because of its hard boardlike covers, it is still sturdy. The images of hearts, flowers, musical notes and writing on its front and back are so lovely that it made it hard to replace, so I wasn’t in a hurry.

Now, as I sit here writing out my Christmas cards, I think how fortuitous it was that I didn’t. As I flip through the pages, I see that it is a history of friendships–of my life, in fact.

There’s the phone number of our first Allstate agent. Just starting out and with no office, Ernie, newly married, and he sat in his car in Tarrytown and wrote out the policy. It might have been his first; it was our first. He was our agent for many years.

There are new friends and old. Acquaintances, listed by their first names, sometimes graduated to friends and were then listed by their last. I hadn’t notice this trend until I looked through the book. Some relatives and high school friends are listed by their maiden names, others by  their married names–no apparent rhyme or reason here.

It’s with sadness I flip through some pages and see names crossed out. Sometimes because of death, other times because of disagreements or drifting apart, and others because they or we moved and we lost touch.

There are a few listings that started out as one, but sadly separated and became two. There’s a listing of dear, dear friends of ours with a simple line through the husband’s name. A great loss to us. Then there’s my high school friend, whose last name is crossed out–what, three or four times? I lost track. She’s back to her maiden name, for good I think.

There are those annoying friends, Pat and Larry, who messed up two whole pages with their nomadic lifestyle. No, wait a minute, there’s a third page. I sold them their first house in Piermont, but they didn’t stay very long, bouncing around Honolulu, Kauai, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Sausalito–now back to New York. Where next?

There are a few–very few–whom I’ve lost because of political differences. Their choice, not mine.

Some entries remind me of different stages of my life.

Some names I haven’t thought about in years and others that make me scratch my head and say, who the heck is that? Oh, my goodness, there’s a girl I walked to grammar school with…and the cute boy whose house we walked past.

There’s the sweet gal I went to Ramapo College with forty plus years ago! There are reminders of jobs I had along the way–the job, and friends I made, at Picagraphics, where I started as a proofreader. There are my contacts at Free Press and Donald Fine, when I free-lanced. And the names of co-workers from my short stint as a real estate agent, as well as co-workers from my all-time favorite job as Program Coordinator for the Nyack Library.

Newcomer friends from Michigan–dear, dear ladies with whom I went on many outings, luncheons, pot-lucks, and overnighters. They were just what I needed to help me deal with being uprooted from family, friends, New York and my job–when my husband was traveling four days a week and I was alone in a foreign part of the country. They made me feel like a college girl away from home for the first time. They made me laugh, cry (when some moved away), explore, open my heart, learn to be crafty, and learn about and appreciate the Mid-west–its terrain and its mindset.

There are reminders of organizations I belonged to or interests I had.

There are a number of investment brokers that we conferred with over the years–some good, some not so good. All of them remind me of my long history and interest in the stock market–going back to when the Dow was below 1000.

A few names remind me of my involvement in The Friends of the Nyacks–one of the favorite communities where I lived.

My Wise Wednesday Women Writers from Michigan, my first writing group, which met once a week for seven or eight years, will always put a smile on my face.

There are dentists and doctors and handymen–in New York, Michigan and Tennessee. There’s even a list of my mother’s doctors, from when I was overseeing her health care. Favorite restaurants and, of course, pizza places in every community we’ve lived.

The last entry, in the Y section, is my yoga class in Southampton, a number I have to call once a month when in New York in order to get into a very popular class. The first fifteen that call at 9a.m. the last Monday of the month get in. It is always stressful!

I notice, though, that lately I haven’t added many numbers and names in the book, not since I got my iPhone. Any new numbers are now entered into my electronic contact list, a list that when edited automatically erases historical data. I wonder, will the next generation have the rich history that I have in my little Address Book?

by Lynn DiGiacomo