Do you have friends who live far away? Like, more than a thousand miles away? If you're an American, chances are you'll have answered yes. Perhaps you're like me -- most (though not all, thank goodness) of my close friends live more than a thousand miles away. They moved, I moved, we all separated. So how do you maintain a close connections at a distance, where a cup of coffee or a glass of wine are never (or rarely) shared across the table?
My daughters have been somewhat of role models for me here: they both have very very close friends who also live more than a thousand miles away. Texting has helped in terms of throwing out details as they rapidly unfold. I know both my daughters text with some of their closest pals constantly. Then there are visits. All their friends have spent money and time coming to see them. They have also traveled, rather regularly. Having small kids makes this tough, nonetheless, they take the time to do this and these visits give meat, so to speak to that bond.
But not all long distance friendships survive. Some people are just not cut out for this form of closeness. They can't do it. The contact fizzles. To almost nothing. A memory maybe. If that.
Is it worth it to do the work that distance friendship requires? For me -- it is. But it's a never ending delicate dance. Ocean puts my life out there for all to see. You want to check in to see what Nina is up to? Just a click away. I've paid a price for this availability. The need for detail is always greater on my part than it is for the person who wants a quick fix of friendship material. They have Ocean, I have to ask. (The good ones actually pick up on a detail from my public writing and pursue it further in a private communication. Most don't.)
I think about this often. If I lived in Warsaw, or Paris, my friends would be a metro ride away. Not so here. Daughters are close by. Most friends are not. The dance of keeping close continues, with a few trips and stumbles along the way, but it continues.
Morning flower snipping...
Breakfast eating...
Granddaughter frolicking, peach picking, and fraises de bois plucking...
And in the afternoon, Ed and I do something we haven't done for a while -- we take a couple of kayaks over to Lake Waubesa. That's less than two miles from the farmette, so it's an easy peasy excursion.
Neither of us loves lake paddling. It's boring. No change in scenery. Wait: not totally boring! We watch the swallows dart and swoop over the waters... Surely the summer of the swallows!
And if you hug the shore and veer south, you can find springs and creeks that feed the lake and you can meander here for a while before you hit a wetland dead end.
The weather today is perfect for this! He and I have not paddled together for too long (this is mostly my fault). It's a glorious little trip!
Evening.
Isn't this a perfect moment to pan cook some brats and steam up some Stoneman's corn? It is!
August can have some awfully good moments!
With love...
