« Happy Birthday Jane »

I am getting ready for my bi-weekly women's circle tonite which I created ten years ago as a way to build a trusted community amongst women who know how to have fun, be sensitive, intelligent and go deep. I am also aware that February 22 is the birthday of my dearest, oldest friend, Jane Kutzler Paar, who left this planet ten years ago..

Jane and I first met in eight grade at a Phila. dance scene held at Boulevard Pools in Northeast Phila.  It was 1965, just a few years post the leather jacket days of Fonzi and kids still hung together on the corner and needed to be cool. It wasn't my neighborhood but it was the best place to dance. On the first night, I witnessed a cat fight between two tough girls fighting over some boy. I stepped into the fight because it upset me and I was too naive to know better. After successfully talking them down by persuading them that the boy wasn't worth their grief, Jane emerged from the crowd and introduced herself. She wanted to know me. The following year we ran into each other again in the hallway of a small private all girls high school, St. Basil's Academy in Fox Chase. It was the beginning of a life long friendship. We were friends through alot of thickness and then some thin. We were intelligent thinkers, writers, poets, naughty, playful hippies and sexy girls. 

What I am aware of today is how much Jane was also my personal historian. She knew me when. Is this not also what we mourn when we lose a life long friend? Someone who is our secret soul keeper? One who has witnessed all the suffering and growing pains you go through to come into consciousness.  I miss Jane still. I think often of her raspy Lauren Bacall voice and the interchangeable laughter and tears that often emerged when we drank too much.  Happy Birthday Janie! I love you.