Brigitte Prem

July, 45 years beyond the big pond.

This is my July story, because it was in July, 45 years ago, when we told each other we would always remember and called the stars of the big dipper to be our witnesses. We were young and full of hope, and there was a life full of promisses ahead of us. My friend was going back to a love, to a boyfriend beyond the big pond, and she was very much in love, so much in love, as I would have liked to be, but I was still waiting. There was no sadness in the meeting under the big dipper, because we did not know that the world was large. We thought it was small and we would meet again.

Years were coming and going, and we lived a busy life. We alwayd felt eternal friendship for each other, but each of us lived her own life. My friend`s first child was born – my namesake. Christmas cards. Christmas presents made by the children. Problems which came and were solved or were not solved. Problems we wrote about or did not write about.

But we did not meet. Maybe we did not even want to. We wished each other well, we were greeting each other over the big dipper, this was enough.

New technologies, new possibilities and opportunities. Skype. We recognized each other at once.

Everything appeared to have happened the day before. 45 years which never had happened.

Now all symbols were discussed with which we tried to integrate our friendship into our families, the big dipper was discussed.

We met after 45 years in July. The aeroplane arrived in San Francisco. Big expectations. Haze. Under the clouds the world small and tiny.

Francisco Bay Area. The City of San Francisko. Golden Gate Bridge. Alcatraz.

Stars in the dark sky. The big dipper. Family. Part of the family. Two families were sitting under the big dipper, under Venus and Jupiter, the great Gods of Ancient Times, under trees growing into the sky, many hundred years old. Even though they were very near now, the big pond was between them, which would always seperate them.

Eternal friendship, eternal life. Hands which touch each other. Marshmellows. Promisses of eternal love under the big dipper. A July, which should never end.

Children and grandchildren. 45 years.

Beside us earth squirrels. Strange birds. Banana slugs. Bears in the forest, whose rights had to be acknowledged.

A children`s railway, toy of generations in the family, running on the wall under the ceiling. In the camper to the desert. Trees which grow into the sky. A swim in the Pacific Ocean. Evenings under the big dipper. Marshmellows in the evening fire. Fern Creak full of magic. Ferns are falling down the rocks like waterfalls. Little glittering stars like precious stones that turn out waterdrops at the Pacific shore and defend their young ones.

4th of July. Fire works. The big dipper. A little girl running about excitedly, putting chairs right, contributing drinking water and juice, lightning fireworks. Barbecue meal.

Westley, the dog from the West, which had been found in the street in the West, with the face and body of a German shephard dog and the ears and the tail of a husky. Also he part of the family whom we had to leave again. Can the paw of a dog put into a human hand for hours be taken into eternity?

And then a cry: "I am sitting on the cake!" Big laughter. The excellent cake from whipped cream and chocolate crumbs. Big laughter again in the middle of fireworks.

Thinking of the other world so different from ours beyond the big pond, partly misunderstood, striving to understand. Silence. From the giant ferns appear the fairies from the old world, who have found their way to here. The ghosts of the new old world, the Bigfoot, the three sisters and the three brothers. Magic of the soal. When the silence becomes quiet, they disappear, but leave a veil of wellbeing and happiness.

We are old. We cannot wait another 45 years. We parted in July, after 45 years we left each other again, in July.