Friendship

There comes a time when friends feel like family or maybe family feels like friends. Age does not determine with whom you become friends with or fall in love with.  It is a concoction of interests, thoughtfulness, empathy, and some kind of magic.  Maybe it is just a love shared. 

 I have been fortunate to have many acquaintances but I have been blessed to have a few very good friends.

Last week my friends, Daisy and Greg, came to Northern California to accept a Michelin Star for their incredible restaurant Bell’s.   As luck would have it, they brought their good friends and colleagues, Rikki and Jeff. Few friends feel as comfortable as these two and now they brought along two more into the mix. It was the perfect combination of personalities brought together under the same small roof.  They settled in seamlessly as if the house was made with them in mind.

Rikki and Jeff now fill roles that Daisy and Greg have long hoped for.  They allow them an opportunity to focus on things other than the restaurant and cooking over a hot stove. 

As much as we look for the next thing or a better thing, I embraced a remark that Daisy made as we sat together talking about nothing and everything --- “I have learned that I have enough and I am happy”.  Friendship is like that --- good friends are enough.  How lucky I am to have been able to share this moment with these good friends.  The house felt alive, warm and enough.  Every moment was enjoyable.  The blend of thoughtful conversation with people that took care of each other and themselves was an experience too quickly concluded.  I was sad when they left but hopeful for their return. 

I am trying to express the feeling of fullness when people enter your life and bring joy just by being present.  Friendship is not the same age, and does not look like us, it is just a magical event that is not always predictable but feels assured and comfortable.  The language of friendship is not words but meanings. ---- Henry David Thoreau.  I felt this quote was appropriate as I reach for the words to best describe this brief two-day interlude in the regularity of living.  I am thankful for the opportunity and grateful for their friendship.

 I have learned that to be with those I like is enough -- Walt Whitman

There is always a story