How many of you remember that old rhyme from Girl Scouts about making new friends? I can't be only brownie in the batch here.
Make new friends but keep the old
One is silver and the other gold
I've spent the week visiting with friends new and old, marveling at the threads that weave us together, how they form, which ones break and which ones hold, all the way through life.
A series of happy coincidences found a long-parted group of friends at my house on Thursday night. Sometimes fate nudges you together. We ate pasta and drained a couple of bottles of wine out on the patio on a hot summer night. Around the table I watched friends from college reminisce and smiled at the bits of them that I know well. Not long ago I took a friend home to visit with my folks. He said he enjoyed seeing bits of me in my sister and my mother. Looking around the table last Thursday, I found myself smiling at the bits of each of my friends that are still "us." We're scattering now. Separate cities, separate states, adding marriages and mortgages along the way. These gatherings that used to be commonplace are becoming rare. Somehow though, when we gather, we fall back into the groove well-worn by our friendship through the years.
Sunday found me yet again basking in the light of a good group friends, what counts as "the gang" these days. For a friend's birthday, we turned a local park into our own little corner of Middle Earth. We skipped around an August tree (too late for a May Pole and we all decided that were to be no fertility celebrations around here anyway) and danced some authentic hobbit dances all the way from the Shire (pictures on my photos page). I love these friends not only for the wonderful people they are, but for being silly with me and for taking our silliness very seriously. Here I am at 27 and I've found friends who will still play dress-up and pretend with me.
What an amazing blessing to have all these friends in my life, new and old. I've had a rough couple of weeks and I feel like I'm on the mend now.