{"id":4308,"date":"2016-05-02T09:38:43","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T16:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=4308"},"modified":"2016-04-29T16:43:30","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T23:43:30","slug":"big-birthday-memory-7-will-you-still-need-me-will-you-still","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/02\/big-birthday-memory-7-will-you-still-need-me-will-you-still\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Birthday Memory #7: Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still \u2026.??"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I\u2019ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today \u2013 from April 17, 2007.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"Cindy<\/a>Saturday night we went to my friend Rona\u2019s<\/a> 60th birthday party in LA.\u00a0 The photo is me, Rona and our Today Show colleague Coby. It was really fun \u2013 how often does Famous Amos<\/a> bake you cookies and Brian Wilson<\/a> sing to you on a Bel Air tennis court turned party heaven?\u00a0 How often do you see photos of yourself, your friend and your husband at Today Show shoots and crazy parties?\u00a0 And how often, in the unexpected chill of an April Los Angeles evening, do you see a pile of blankets for guests that includes the one you made their now 14-year-old son when he was born?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written about Rona<\/a> before but Saturday night was a real reminder of the nature of a gifted friend.\u00a0 She asked everyone to stand up.\u00a0 Those who knew her 5 years or less, sit down.\u00a0 Then ten years.\u00a0 Then fifteen.\u00a0 We were feeling pretty cocky since we were in the 20 years or less category \u2013 until we saw how many people \u2013 from New York, DC, Hawaii, San Francisco, LA and God knows where else \u2013 were standing at 30 \u2013 and even 40 years!\u00a0 And Rick and I knew many of them; we\u2019d been to birthday parties or holiday events or just dinner with them over the years. I once heard someone quote Wendy Wasserstein as saying that you could judge someone\u2019s character by how well they kept their friends.\u00a0 In that as in so many other ways she was a star.<\/p>\n

On the tables were CDs for all of us \u2013 with a photo of her at Woodstock on the cover (one that I\u2019d used in our 20 year anniversary piece (it was really great) to close it out.\u00a0 Sunday I was driving around LA while my husband was at his conference so I stuck the CD into the player.\u00a0 The next thing I knew I was driving down the 10 Freeway in tears \u2014 not sweet little showers but huge wracking sobs.\u00a0 Not really sadness, it was more a recognition of all the treasured time that has passed \u2013 of how much I loved so much of it and how real it still feels to me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never read Remembrance of Things Past<\/em> but I\u2019m told that the entire epic emerges from memories evoked from the smell of a Madeline (a kind of French cookie \u2013 they sell them at Starbucks I think.)<\/p>\n

Well each song \u2013 Van Morrison<\/a> or Bob Dylan<\/a> or Paul Simon<\/a> or\u00a0Marvin Gaye <\/a>took me someplace.\u00a0 The thing is \u2013 sad as I was, I was also absurdly grateful to have the memories and moments so powerfully evoked by the music.\u00a0 Not until I hit 60 did I realize you really DO get older \u2013 that some things are in the past for good.\u00a0 When the music is there, though, nothing’s really gone.\u00a0 Memories and senses arise in all their glory and float me back where I came from.\u00a0 Not for long \u2013 and not entirely \u2013 but enough to remind me of the privileges of my life and the wonders of life itself.\u00a0 Corny but oh so true \u2013 music brings the gift of memory and joy.\u00a0 Yet another thing to thank birthday girl Rona for adding to my life.\u00a0 Happy birthday one more time, my sister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I\u2019ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today \u2013 from April 17, 2007.\u00a0 Saturday night we went to my friend Rona\u2019s 60th birthday party in LA.\u00a0 The photo is me, Rona and our Today Show colleague Coby. It was really fun \u2013 … Continue reading Big Birthday Memory #7: Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still \u2026.??<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3799,3800,3,4,3798,3801,6,42,8,29],"tags":[2276,3821,15,3820,3822,3819,3825,3824,54,3823,455],"class_list":["post-4308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3799","category-3800","category-aging","category-baby-boom","category-big-birthday","category-big-birthday-70-1946-2016","category-culture","category-family","category-music","category-women","tag-60th-birthday","tag-beach-boys","tag-bob-dylan","tag-brian-wilson","tag-coby-atlas","tag-famous-amos","tag-marvin-gaye","tag-paul-simon","tag-today-show","tag-van-morrison","tag-woodstock"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-17u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4322,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions\/4322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}