Friendship

Years ago when one would make a real journey across the Atlantic from the Americas to Europe, one imagines that while staring out at the icebergs en route that one would have time to digest the magnitude of the distance. Thoughts on what is being left and time to mentally prepare for what will be upon arrival.

Nowadays we zoom about the planet and get on with it wherever we touch down. Can we mentally and emotionally keep up with the speed at which our physical selves go though? Anyway this is not a philosophical debate merely an observation as I flew to London leaving the palm trees and sprawling glamour and 12 hours later arriving in a freezing city, fumbling for my oyster card and stumbling onto the tube.

Over four years since I have been to London, a city I lived in for 8 years. Staring at the tube line destinations while in the Eastwards Piccadilly train, I thought of my memories for each stop. So many. I felt like a ghost of Christmas past revisiting a past life. I wondered what I would be doing here now if I still lived here…if I hadn’t packed up and upped and offed with $7000 in a sandwich bag to seek a new life in the West.

My London sejourn was back to back time with friends some of whom I had not seen for 4 years…and in one case who has multiplied twice since then. The time spent apart had not diluted the friendships, the love. I loved it. Moving away from London took at least a year longer than it could have done if my friendships hadn’t been so strong.  Living precariously as a freelance artist brings a depth of friendship with others who have made similar choices. Leaving those relationships to start afresh in a whole new city, country, continent, was extremely difficult.

The main part of the bead movement for me is recognizing what is important to me and devoting time as well as words to what that is. I remember years ago reading an article which asked you to write down what was important to you in your life. Make a list. Then think about how you spend your time, what you fill your days with…does the list of important things correlate? Or does your schedule lean into one quadrant much more than any others. I often think of that as it was shocking to me when I realized that some of my most important treasures in my life were at the bottom of the list in terms of how much time they got. Ever since reading that I have seriously sought to remedy the situation.

These 4 close friends who I had the privelage to spend time with know me so well. In one case all my life and in the case of the others at least 15 years. I shared a stage for the first time with one of them, my munchkin school teacher to her Glinda the good witch, with others college years in Glasgow and Paris and with one our first TV job complete with wigs, make up and improvising in a graveyard.

Looking at my thousands of beads and thinking of days gone by with these friends, these are the days well worth living. Where time seemed irrelevant where dreams were being formed and lives led in Technicolor. What is so incredible to me is that despite thousands of miles, children and many house moves being together our time together now is as if our days have not been spent so far apart. Here’s to true wonderful friendship, may oceans and things never dilute what we have together and may our paths cross more regularly than once or twice in a blue moon.

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