Friendship

 It's become a tradition in February, one almost as sacred as chocolates and hearts, this week I spend in Florida with my friend M.  We loll around the house here, sleep later than normal, talk, drink coffee in our pajamas as long as we like, go for walks, talk, sit in the sun, read, eat, talk, shop, drink, get facials and pedicures...well, you get the picture.  This week is one of the things that makes February lovely.

But I'll let you in on a secret. 

It's not always easy for me to share this much of myself.

It's my nature to be a very private person, rather introverted actually, and perfectly happy being on my own with only me, myself, and I for company.  I was never one of those kids who liked having friends over all the time, and sometimes would just throw lots of my toys out the backdoor and say, "Here, you play with them, and I"m going inside to read."   I weaseled my way out of invitations to birthday parties and sleep overs whenever I could.   I had no intention of going away to college, because I couldn't imagine myself in a communal living situation like a dorm.  (I still get cold chills down my spine just thinking about it.)

I've had some adult friendships over the years that were close enough to involve lengthy periods of time together, even traveling together (the true test of a friendship, I think).  But it's always been a strain for me, and I always find myself yearning just a little bit, no matter how much fun we were having, to be on my own.

Now, M. and I get on very well and have very similar tastes in the things we like to do.  We became friends first through church, and our friendship was cemented during the years we played bells together and traveled around performing.  Our husband's are friends too, and the four of us have done some rather extensive traveling together.  M. and her husband have a world of friends from all walks of life, and they have graciously included us in their inner circle, providing us with social opportunities we would never had had otherwise.  Through our friendship, I've learned how to do all the group things that I never allowed myself to do when I was younger.  And I've learned to enjoy them very much. 

But I think there's a part of me that  I always keep to myself, and when I'm with another person for an extended period of time  it gets tiring to keep that secret part hidden away.  It's almost like holding your breath, this feeling of keeping watch over that inner being, of not letting it escape into the light of day.  It's not really about being on my best behavior, or trying to impress with my knowledge or wit...it's just about being truly and completely me. 

How about you?  Are you a people person, or do you prefer being on your own?  Are your times with friends love-ly?

 

The Love-ly Month of February

About 5:30 this afternoon, the automatic timer on my reading lamp switched on, and guess what?  I didn't even notice. That's right.  I didn't notice, because the SUN WAS STILL SHINING!

Amazing.  Just yesterday it seems I readjusted the timer because the house was pitch black at 5: 30.  Now, this love-ly month of February gives us the gift of just a pinch more daylight, a baby step closer to those long, light filled evenings when I can sit on the porch until bedtime and watch the fireflies flicker in the orchard.

There is a tiny movement afoot in blog-land to celebrate love in all its forms and fashions this February.  I first read about it here, and then found out more about it here.

So my paean to lengthening days is my way of saying I Love You to February.

More posts about things I love in the days ahead.

What are you loving this February?

Inner Rebel

"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing."   Thomas Jefferson

Mr. Jefferson should know, shouldn't he?  After all, he and his cohorts instigated the rebellion which led to the creation of these United States.

Most of us are never involved in that kind of large scale rebellion.  But I think each of us harbors an inner rebel that occasionally yearns to break free.  

Write about your

Inner Rebel

Write On Wednesday~Pivotal Moments

 In everyone's life there are moments which change the direction of your future.  Sometimes they are under your control, sometimes they are imposed upon you by fate.  The choices you make at these moments can be the turning points which decide your future. 

Write about a

Pivotal Moment

Yes, I know it's Saturday not Wednesday - but I make my own rules (at least here in Blogland), so I'll write when I want!  smiles>

Pivotal moments...the idea for this prompt came to me from a book - of course.  I was reading Lit, the third volume of Mary Karr's memoir-autobiographical series (Liar's Club, Cherry).   About midway through the book, Karr, in a drunken stupor, runs her car off the road.  As her vehicle spins out of control, her mind jumps to thoughts of her infant son  thinking that he'll be forced to grow up motherless, and she realizes her life is skidding as helplessly toward disaster as the four rubber tires underneath her.  From that pivotal moment comes the impetus to get her life back on steady ground - to stop drinking, to pay off her debts, start writing in earnest.  Find a spiritual center.  And these things she does, although not without great and ongoing effort.

Rarely do pivotal moments come with such dramatic force.  I did run my car off the road once, and remember feeling nothing so much as complete helplessness as it spun out of control on the embankment above the freeway.  Did the experience prompt me to change my life in any way?  No.  But whenever I feel as if life is out of control, my heart returns to those brief moments when my life was, quite literally, out of my control, and I was whirling toward near disaster.

But most often, pivotal moments come and go and we never realize that a decision or action or chance meeting or casual word might have had a profound impact on our lives.  It's in retrospect that we can see the lasting effect of a moments encounter,  in looking back over the accumulation of pivotal moments that we  clearly see how they've woven themselves into the tapestry that  becomes our life.

In the aftermath of horrible disasters, you hear stories about people who were miraculously saved because of a chance moment - a father who was late to work in the World Trade Center because he was taking a sick child to the pediatrician, a mother who missed a doomed flight because a meeting ran late, a vacation on a tsunami destroyed resort postponed because of a family crisis.  Returning to Lit, at one point Karr's AA sponsor says to her, "You should be dead by now.  God saved you for something.  What is your dream for your life?"

I think pivotal moments lead us toward our dreams, either purposefully or inadvertently.  We just have to recognize the way they're pointing. 

How about you?  Looking back, what's a pivotal moment in your life?  Certainly getting married, the birth of my first child, deaths of people I love...those are all pivotal, heart stopping, life altering moments.   Other than those,  the moment with the most lasting impact has to be the moment I answered a classified ad in the local paper for a pianist at an area high school.  From that moment has derived nearly every important relationship I currently have (outside of my family).  It led me to my church home, to a multitude of wonderful travel experiences, gave me confidence to go forward into other ventures, including my office job.  It even led me to Magic and Molly!   Pivotal moment, indeed.