Home is where the heart is...

I’m behind on blog posts.  I do have a Spinster in the Kitchen installment nearly ready to go, but tonight my mind is on other things.  Tonight my mind is on people. 

We all have friends; at least I hope all of you do.  They are the people we turn to when times are tough.  They are the people we celebrate our milestones with.  They are the people we laugh with, cry with, drink with, and break bread with.   They are in our lives, sharing the passing of time with us, not due to familial obligation, or any sort of legal vow but simply because they want to be here.  This makes them precious.

Our friends are the keepers of our lives. telling us our own stories back to us during those times when we gather to share memories: when we reminisce around the dinner table after a potluck meal, or over cake at some milestone birthday, or just one evening at a bar when the hour grows late and the time passes as quickly as the cups of wine empty.  They give us the opportunity to see how the eyes and heart of another perceives us and enable us to connect to our beauty when we unable to find it on our own.

I count myself lucky to have the friends that I do.  Some I’ve known for years, a few for most of my adult life, and many who are more recent.  Each one brings something unique and good to my life.  I hope that I bring something of equal value to their lives too.  

Among these friends there have been those rare and special few who have added something so wonderful to my life that when they are absent, I find myself missing the feeling of their presence.   It isn’t that being apart from them leaves behind emptiness, but it is instead that when they are here the moments we experience together are made beyond ordinary because we have shared them.   When I see them I have a sense of arriving home and I experience joy.

So later this week I’ll share my post about breakfast pastries for one, but tonight I want to express gratitude for the friends who have brought so much love and joy to my life.  Friends are, after all, an essential ingredient in the recipe for a happy life.