All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers

The title for this entry is not original, but is the title of a novel by Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, and so on). The title's implications, however, have, as of late, been leaving traces of fairy dust in the title-quadrant of my brain. Many titles--the names of stillborn novels and poems--have died there, undusted.

McMurtry's title bounced to the forefront several weeks ago when I attended a social function co-hosted by a woman I have been friends with for nearly 20 years. I was seated at a table watching and listening to celebratory commotion when I realized I had been nudged to a circle a bit outside of "close friends." Around the room like so many orbiting planets were new people, ones I did not know and will never meet.

Not long after that function, I was having lunch with someone I've known for nearly as long, and somewhere in our conversation he spoke of doing things that would take him to places I would never see. I again thought of McMurtry's title and how much truth there is in it, how people who seem so close might not be for long. I also remembered a photograph of my son and one of his friends in elementary school. The two boys smile into the camera, their hands clasping a large sign on which is painted "Best Friends Forever." But their paths diverged not long after. And, because for various reasons I am prone to sadness for this son, I found myself wishing for him a lifetime of friendships.

This all sounds, perhaps, more desultory and dramatic than I intend. Mostly, I wanted to write something about the title, and look where I ended up.