Friends

This month friendship is a theme for me.  I spent last weekend with a group of folks I’ve known for almost 30 years.  We consider ourselves to be Family-by-Choice by now, and get together regularly in various combinations.

In two weeks I’ll be joining many friends at a retreat in Wyoming with my long-time teacher and friend John Travis. He will be teaching with Joseph Goldstein, with whom he learned meditation in India decades ago. I know by the end I’ll feel a deep sense of friendship with all the retreatants.  It’s interesting how the experience of being in silence with people leads to such a wonderful sense of closeness and intimacy.

From there I’ll be visiting a rafting buddy I haven’t seen in decades, other friends in Ashland, Oregon for plays, and then on to Portland for more visiting with a long-time friend and a newer one I met on my Tibet pilgrimage.

And with any luck I’ll be reconnecting with my college roommate over Thanksgiving.

Having moved every 2-3 years growing up, I got used to losing friends regularly.  I’m grateful that I have learned how to re-connect to old friends and stay connected to newer ones.

I wish the boys in the photo as long a friendship as the women have probably enjoyed.  They live days from a road in Bhutan.  The women are looking at a photo taken the year before by my friend and our guide Christy.