a spirited walk

A birthday walk today took me to the forest. No, no! Not my birthday! Karen’s birthday. Karen is perhaps my second oldest (by number of years we’ve known each other) friend in town. I should admit that she is also one of those rare people who can easily push me into laughter even if I am riding some wave of gloomish mournfulness. She is a lot younger than me – 367 days actually, and so I feel protective of her (she’s also a wee bit shorter, so I can hover and be a bear-like figure). When I am not laughing.

Now, all this is not unusual. Karen and I walk frequently. But today was extra special, what with her birthday and all. It called for a singularly special topic and we indeed found one: musing about our own funerals – who might show up, who would say what, who would have the greatest amount of remorse (forget about sadness – I am not into funeral sadness). Once you get going on something like this you can spin into all sorts of promising directions, like reviewing the aesthetic merits of the pope's casket, where to go for lunch after you've attended a downtown Chicago funeral, etc etc.

Such a spirited discussion! I'm wondering if she was as fully into it as I was though. Her mood may have been less funerally inclined. Hmmm...