Big Kittie

My friend out in Seattle sent me this image the other morning. I hardly ever get to see Carol, but we're often in one another's wave length--however that happens, why with some friends more than others, is a mystery to me, but I frequently feel her good presence somehow. The best thing about my friendship with Carol is that we take one another as we are, no pretense, no games, no obligations, no expectations. I can't say I have many friendships like this, maybe hers is unique! Though most people don't understand Carol, she and I have much in common, and I can say I do understand her, and she understands me. And a lot of people don't understand that!

Some friendships require constant grooming and fussing, like bees living together in the hive. A beehive wouldn't function properly without all the checking in, the bee dancing, the well rehearsed jobs, the feeding, cleaning and producing. I have friends I work with who will forever be like beehive friends--outside of the hive, we have little in common, but inside the hive, we are sisters and brothers, we are married, we are parents and children! And then, at the end of the day, we go our separate ways....

Other friends have been around forever, I mean, many, many years, and the pure weight of shared experience is like a mantel we wear together, a garland in good times, a yoke or a millstone in difficult times--and of course it all depends on how we see it. But truly, if not for these many shared years, would we still continue a friendship? If we met tomorrow, would we continue to seek one another out?

I find myself defining things like relationships too often, and when I define them, I've already limited them.

What a pity to limit something like a relationship, but we do it by dint of our constant need to categorize, to define, to explain.

The fact is, friendships, like the Big Kittie morphing out of the cloud, just sort of shift, cloud-like, and ephemeral. It's a constant dance.

When I am comfortable just being, I can accept that about friendships, about the emotions that bind us together or send us in different directions--it's the way of anything that is born, lives and dies. And a relationship, a friendship, is no different.