Friendship Across the Years

I didn’t come easily to making friends.

This verse in my poem ‘A Long Time Ago’ captures something of how I felt in the primary school playground.

It was
the
silence
the closed games
and head shakes
acid that etched
corroding self-confidence
as yet again
I trembled “Can I play?”
Averted heads
closed looks
leaving me to wander
and circle
overtures of friendship
rejected
adrift in solitary pursuits
until at the end of the day
I could return to riotous play
and daring adventures with
my brothers.

Verse 4  A Long Time Ago by Jeanette O’Hagan 29 January 2014

Books were my friends. And, yes, as the years passed I did get better at making school friends as well but we moved often – over eight different schools. So every year or two I would have to start all over again.I spent much of my school years finding friends between the pages of a book and in my own fertile imagination. Yet as I read Anne Shirley’s adventures and especially her enduring friendship with Dianna Barry, I felt a sense of discontent. “Mum, why can’t I find a special bosom friend like Anne?” I’d ask.

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