Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

In an airport, once again, traveling between friends and family, family and friends. Sadly, I’m on my own for these couple of legs. This “sandwich generation” stuff is getting harder by the day. MCO to BOS this morning as I travel from the funeral of my best friend’s Dad to what looks like an abridged version of the annual White Family Cape Cod adventure. We are down one parent, too, and the next generation is in the early stages of careers and families of their own which makes it difficult to get away for a week on the beach. My journey is solo as Mrs. bingo awaits the arrival of the Man Cub’s little sister who begins her own journey any day now.

In the middle of the sandwich, where we welcome babies into the family as we say goodbye to parents who leave, we hopefully share this stage with at least one good friend, and hopefully for our longevity three or more (turns out that’s a magic number). In addition to a brother with whom I cannot be closer and my darling bride with whom I could not be more in love, my journey has been blessed with a best friend who has ridden shotgun or been my driver for 40 years now. We have taken turns carrying each other whenever one of us needed the lift. Mostly we’ve just walked side by side, as friends do..

Friendship is on my mind quite often. I ponder it as I think about friends old and new. My 35th college reunion was a month or so ago, and I am pleasantly surprised at the number of old friends and friendly acquaintances who are emerging from the mists of my past. Misplaced, lost, or cast aside, the skeletons of friendships past walk with me, still.

We are blessed, fortunate beyond measure, if we can count among the masses a single friend. One to whom we can always turn, from whom we withhold nothing, who will give to us everything. To have more than one friend such as this is to have a kind of wealth that beggars description. My parents gave one in 1961; Rob, the friend who just lost his Dad, showed up in 1978.

If we are lucky enough to have such friends they are joined in the garden of our lives by that next best thing, friendly acquaintances, and these in turn are surrounded by acquaintances. The entire garden is encircled by farmland that lies, for the moment at least, unexplored. The enterprising gardener is always on alert for new seedlings out there to plant in that garden of friendship.

The garden analogy is an apt one for friendship. A garden requires tending and so, too, does a friendship. Left untended, left to chance, it is certainly possible for a garden to flourish. All too often both gardens and friendships ignored too long have a beauty that is but a cherished memory, seen only with the mind’s eye.

Friendship, like a garden, grows best when exposed to both sun AND rain, albeit for different reasons. A friendship that has known only sunny days may weather that first storm; a friendship that has known both sun and rain is steeled against any and all weather, especially if we gardeners were active in the tending despite the elements. So it has been for my friends and me.

Who is your friend? Who is there for you in both sunshine and rain? From whom do you wish only friendship, and who asks only the same from you? Have you done your part? Have you tended your garden in both sunshine AND rain?

I am in an airport, leaving my friend and headed toward my brother. It’s raining; we are all missing our Dad. But we have tended these gardens for decades. The sun will come out soon enough.

Sadly, I have had numerous opportunities over the last year or so to note that there is not a single language on earth that has a word or name for a parent who has lost a child. Words exist to describe a surviving spouse, and of course we have a word in most languages for a child without parents: orphan. The word conjures up Dickensonian images of waifs and wastrels in varying degrees of distress and underdress, under-fed and unloved. In reality, despite the ubiquity of this stereotype, there are many, many ways that one becomes an orphan. Indeed, in a proper order of events, each of us will be orphaned by the loss of a second parent.

It is somewhat amazing to me how many people have lost a parent early in life through abandonment. A mother or a father simply ups and leaves. No forwarding address or email, just gone forever. It hurts just to type those words. What must it feel like to live them? Still others lose a parent for years on end before that parent actually dies. Mental illnesses of all sorts, most commonly the various types of dementia, essentially wipe a loved one’s personhood off the planet long before the empty shell passes on. It’s a rather cruel joke, that, to see what looks like your Mom or Dad sitting across from you like some kind of reasonable facsimile, an avatar perhaps, but not really Mom or Dad. Mourning begins years or decades before anyone sits Shiva.

In the end, though, orphanhood comes for us all, in one way or another. My friend Bill, the surgeon, expresses surprise and a sense of something that is a bit more than frustration, though slightly less than anger, at what he calls the “final reckoning” deathbed visit. Why, he so often wonders, do so many people, so many sons and daughters feel the need to achieve some sort of closure, some sort of final peace in the last waning hours of a life? Mind you, this is a man who practices “live and death” medicine; his point, forged so close to the fire, ought not be missed.

Mothers and fathers are no more or less flawed than any other humans. For most of us their flaws lie cloaked behind the curtains of devotion in our childhood. As we ourselves age, certainly if we become parents, those curtains part and we begin to see more of the whole person who makes up Mom or Dad. Blessed are we who find more to like and love behind those curtains. One hopes at worst that what we find does not dim the glow of childhood memory. Bill’s point, or at least what I think he is saying, is that we should know that orphanhood is inevitable. There is nothing that you can say or do on death’s doorstep that cannot be said or done long before you approach the threshold of your own orphan status. Bill would say that closure is important, that he understands and supports the compulsion to make sure that your parents know that you love them. It’s just the timing he’s wondering about.

Why wait until the cusp of orphanhood? Why not discharge regrets and express your love and gratitude when you and Mom and Dad can might have time to enjoy what comes next? Together.

Sunday musings…

1) Calisthenics. From the Greek: “kalos” meaning beauty, and “thenos” meaning strength.

2) Size. Someone always as a bigger boat.

3) Anoesis: A state of mind which consists of pure sensation or emotion, devoid of any cognitive content.

I am on vacation this week, seeking the elusive state of anoesis.

4) Independence Day. July 4th, 1776. Brexit v1.0, if you will. In honor of the day I will re-read the Declaration of Independence, the document that we celebrate today. While I’m at it I think I will read the Constitution in its entirety. If I’ve done so in the past I have surely forgotten the experience.

Both efforts will surely be at cross purposes with my anoesis pilgrimage.

5) Somebody. Incognito (no bow tie; kept my mouth shut), I was out and about with Mrs. bingo yesterday. Nevertheless, I was recognized several times. “Aren’t you somebody?” Or even better/worse: “Weren’t you somebody?” In a see and be seen society these questions are asked with great regularity. The asking and the answering are equally amusing.

“Aren’t/weren’t you somebody?” Both questions are really rather bold and intrusive, don’t you think? What does it even mean to be a someone, anyway? If you ARE a someone what’s it like when somebody sees that you are someone but can’t figure out just who? I wonder if it’s hard, or maybe a little bit sad, someone remembering that you were once upon a time a someone and you aren’t any more.

The world of CrossFit has grown so much that there are actually FEWER somebodies nowadays. In the earliest days of CrossFit there were so few of us that it was relatively easy to be a “somebody” of a sort. Heck, there were so few of us around that no one was more than 2 degrees of separation from anyone else, including Coach. Really big CrossFit Central “somebodies” were at the other end of an email address or a cellphone number, and they responded to pretty much any CrossFitter who reached out. Gone from sight are OPT, Hari and Damnit, MattG and his flame wars. No more Appolloswabbie and Dale dueling with Barry or Prole on Rest Day. Brendan G is now part of a growing family with Allison_NYC, both only barely on the grid where once they were daily companions for most everyone CrossFit. Seriously, when is the last time you saw an update on one of the “Nasty Girls” Eva T, Annie, or Nicole? Someone needs to send out an APB.

Growth in the CrossFit world has decreased the number of household “somebodies” while at the same time dramatically changing those that remain into SOMEBODY.

There is nothing that is uniquely CrossFitty about this transition, of course. Any rapidly growing “new, new thing” will encounter this phenomenon. I once likened discovering CrossFit to not only living in Seattle in the earliest days of grunge metal, but of actually being in the audience when Nirvana or Pearl Jam were singing for beers. Hewlett and Packard left behind just as many early adopters and colleagues as did Gates and Jobs, people who were real “somebodies” in the earliest days of Silicon Valley tech. In the journey to “used to be someone” it matters little whether you stepped off the train or were jettisoned, you are now “used to be” either way.

At best I have never been more than a C-List somebody, here or anywhere. I doubt if anyone will ever seriously ask me: “didn’t you use to be…?”

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

Chaos and calm. As far as I can see, and for as long as I’ve known, these are the only two states of being for a father.

To be sure, not all states of chaos are unpleasant, and there are innumerable degrees of calm. At the moment I am luxuriating in the calm of quiet, accompanied by only Tiny Tim and Abbie the Wonder Dog (both of whom have re-racked). A social creature, these moments of calm were once painfully lonely for me. Having rediscovered my “pen” they are now cherished little gifts, times during which I alternately “sits and thinks” and even “just sits”.

Father’s Day brings soft and warm memories of the other type of calm. Those times when I was with one or several of my children or my “extras” (thanks for the new vocabulary Dillie!). Memories of late summer 1988, coming home to “The Heir” in his infancy just in time to fall asleep with him swaddled and resting on my chest. Or tiny Barbie tea parties with “Lovely Daughter” in her “Megan-Loo Who” stage (from which she eventually acquired the nickname “Goobs”). There’s no yelling at a tea party, right? Lil’bingo and I would work on “construction projects” with his Tonka trucks that could last for hours. The best type of calm for a Dad isn’t lonely at all.

Chaos is just as much a double-edged sword. Man, why couldn’t there be a family frequent flyer program at the ER or the orthopedic surgeons’ office? Even chaos, though, is a net positive as a Dad. I find myself smiling as I remember all of the events we just barely got to on time, the “fire drill” leading up to our arrivals notwithstanding. The chaos of a house filled with toddlers, pre-teens, teens or young adults is filled with enough energy to light up a small city for a weekend. My sides are aching from the memories of the laughter.

Chaos and calm.

Father’s Day for me this year will be like every other Father’s Day since we welcomed “The Heir” so long ago. Unlike so many who use the day to do something like play golf or climb a mountain or some such, I will try to spend as many of my waking moments in the active pursuit of doing Dad stuff. Firing up the griddle this morning and making the bacon is so much more fun than breakfast in bed, the chaos of the Man Cub and the dogs and the timing of the delivery of our new grill (presents!) notwithstanding. I have always spent so, so much time away from my kids (and still so much away from my grandchildren) just doing the things that a breadwinner must do; on Father’s Day what I want more than anything is to be allowed to do Dad stuff as much I can. To be able to just be a Dad today is always my goal, always the best gift possible.

Chaos and calm. Happy Father’s Day to each of you lucky enough to enjoy both.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

Sunday musings…

1) Tech. There are no longer any toll booths on the Mass Pike. Big Brother simply knows you were there.

2) NoNo. Meeting up with ages-old friends in our mid-50’s the topic of what children will call grandparents came up. The best one? “NoNo”. Can’t you just see how this one happens? That Mom who had all kinds of rules when you were a kid following behind the toddlers and telling them “no, no” every time they pick something up?

Not a one of us had the guts to let that one stand, but every single one of us thought about it.

3) Name. What’s in a name, eh? I met the husband of a long-time ago friend this weekend for the first time. (As an aside, we would be friends who saw each other all the time if we lived closer). The last name was different from my friend’s maiden name, but something was just a little bit more than different. After looking and looking I finally asked. Turns out these two wonderful people just couldn’t bear to give up their family names, but at the same time they wanted a shared last name for their own family.

No hyphens for them; they just put their names together and started with a new, shared name. How lovely.

4) Beginning. Beth and I are cruising along the highway on our way to my primordial home. We just spent the weekend in the company of many of my college classmates at a 35th college reunion. Such a funny tradition, coming together every 5 years to remember times so long past in a place that pretends it is always and ever as it was when we were there (my alma mater is 224 years old). A part of you kind of expects that you and everyone else will be just like you were when you showed up for Freshman Days, your role and your place as immutable as it is when you go to a family reunion.

And you arrive and realize that neither you nor any of your classmates bear more than a passing resemblance to the children who were emptied out of the family wagon 39 years earlier.

5 years ago I was doing just exactly what I’m about now, writing about my Reunion. My abiding sense that day was of opportunity missed (there were a bunch of folks I really met for the first time at my 30th who I wished I’d known in school). This year? It’s funny, really. Along with fantastic, ridiculous and over-the-top success and prosperity, the most interesting among us were those whose victories were balanced by challenges that maybe didn’t turn out so well. There was a certain humility that I don’t remember from years past which came out as we talked about our marriages, our children, and for some of us our grandchildren. It was very nice, actually, openly and honestly sharing those kinds of things with peers who we would have felt too competitive towards in years past to take that kind of chance.

Leaving reunions has always felt like so many Brigadoon moments: always the same. Nothing new. No growth and no change. It’s different this year, for whatever reason. Driving away this time actually feels like a new beginning. Weird, huh? We are even taking a new route “home”. Off I go as if I’ve graduated once again, this time with a recalibrated sense of who I’ve become and where my friends and I fit together at the start of the rest of our lives. Reunions are meant to turn our view back, but it’s forward I look with a new appreciation for where I am rather than where I (and my classmates) used to be. Forward, consciously choosing those friendship opportunities not to miss this time around.

Some of us take a bit longer to finish college I guess.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

On one Sunday each year we celebrate the Hallmark Cards Mother’s Day. My work buddy Ken actually has it closer to the mark when he says that there are actually 363 Mother’s Days, the other two being Father’s Day and Ken’s birthday. While I love that sentiment we all know that a super-majority of mothers actually give a super-majority of their working hours to their kids, either directly or through the prism of worry while they (the mothers) are at work. There’s not much celebration going on there. For all of its gifts, motherhood the vocation is chockablock filled with hard work and worry.

In my day job a large percentage of my peers, especially my younger peers, are women who are also mothers. I have said (and written) that the pressures on these women is infinitely greater than that on those of us who are fathers because of the fundamentally different demands of what constitutes the minimal expected parental involvement of a mother. Heavy stuff. It is especially daunting to attempt to climb a career ladder that is in addition to what must be done just to do a good job each day in the office. To be a physician leader on the national level is to commit to countless days and nights away form home on top of those that are standard fare for a “regular doctor”. Face it, not a single dad in the same situation is ever asked how he feels about the stress of being away from his kids.

Not a single mom goes through a day without having multiple people ask them just that.

Listen, there’s just no easy answer to this dilemma. One need only look at the tragic epiphany Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook had after losing her husband to an accident shortly after her book “Lean In” took every woman who ever worried or wondered about the cost of success to task was published. Ms. Sandberg was adamant that women had no choice but to compete on a level with men. Indeed, that it was their duty, for themselves and for all other women who would follow. She and her book were tone deaf to the realities of life outside the bubble in which every executive/professional was married to a wealthy entrepreneur and had nannies, housekeepers, and cooks. Single mothers, in particular, had trouble finding themselves in her philosophy. One leaned in without a thought to what one might be leaning OUT of.

Ms. Sandberg just published another book, “Plan B”, in which she deals with her grief at losing her husband. To her credit she also revisits her original thesis on what it means to be a mother as well as a woman who has the potential to reach the pinnacle of their respective careers. The pain of her realization of the time she could have spent with her husband and children but didn’t fairly drips off the page. It is truly heartbreaking. Although I was quite frankly repulsed by the arrogance of her first book I can find nothing but the deepest sympathy and sorrow that it took such a loss to open her eyes to what she now realized she’d been missing.

You can only lean in to one thing by leaning out of others. You can have it all I guess, just not all at once.

There is no right or wrong answer here my friends. Certainly no right or wrong answer that I would ever be presumptuous enough to offer, for sure. Only that each of us, mother or father, makes a decision about what it is that we have to do in our own little families. Those of us outside someone else’s family should simply be as understanding as we can possibly be, you know? I wish for Ms. Sandberg sake that she’d been a little more sympathetic before she was tragically forced to be empathetic to those folks who walk in different shoes. For my professional friends I simply wish for a few moments of thought so that they may make a conscious decision about the path they will take; a career will drive away with you if you don’t take the wheel.

Being a Mom is hard work. I’ve not seen anyone in my life work harder than my mother or my darling wife, both of whom stayed home with their children until the school years had passed. They, too, sacrificed, in their cases leaving careers behind, as did my sisters. By leaning out of the traditional workforce their choice was to lean in to their families. Men do that, too, you know, but that’s probably fodder for Father’s Day musings, right?

So for today let us all wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Sheryl Sandbergs out there, to all of my professional colleagues who are trying so hard to balance their professional potential with their desire to be the best moms they can be. Happy Mother’s Day to the moms who spend each hour of their day in the full-time pursuit of the being a mom, looking wistfully at careers that once held so much potential. Happy Mother’s Day to each and every one of you who wake up each day and go to sleep each night thinking and dreaming and hoping and worrying about your kids. That’s what moms do, no matter what else they also do, right?

Finally, Happy Mother’s Day to my Beth, mother to “The Heir”, “Lovely Daughter”, and “Lil’bingo”. We are the family that we are because you chose to be the mother you are.

Sleep was late in coming. I stayed up texting with a West Coast friend and professional colleague, thinking and reminiscing about the 3 core guiding principles that helped me (and in many ways him) make it through our training and early professional careers. All 3 have stood the test of time, have continued to inform my best decisions both professional and personal, and over the 30 years now since I first said the out loud I’ve only needed to add one additional guideline.

“Knowledge is power.” One is at such a profound disadvantage if there is asymmetry in the amount of information they possess relative to those with whom they interact that at a certain point those not “in the know” cease to be independent entities. Without knowledge, awareness of the ground as Sun Tzu would say, you are at the mercy of another. You must depend upon their kindness for, well, almost everything.

“Perception is more important than reality.” The explanation of this, of course, is that perception is the reality of perceiver. While you could say that this is simply an extension of the first guideline–creating the perception is in some way controlling the knowledge–I would simply say that one need only look at the deeply held worldview of some of the U.S. voting public, their perception of what is real and what is important, to illustrate that perception comes from within. This is all the more so when dealing with “one issue” voters. Understanding this should inform your approach to any situation whatsoever. What does this individual perceive at this moment? That becomes the reality with which you will be dealing, your version notwithstanding.

“Evolution is better than revolution.” Funny to have initially stated something like that  on CrossFit.com, the home of a truly disruptive revolution in fitness, eh? Again, this CrossFit that I have so wholly embraced must be the example that renders this guideline moot. Here is where my conversation with Dave that night was so helpful, for Dave was (and still is) a man in a hurry to effect change for the better: evolution involves a conscious attempt to minimize unnecessary collateral damage. Sometimes that damage is directed at oneself, and thinking more along the lines of the “long game” is also sometimes a very reasonable approach to self-preservation. After all, the fire of revolution burns brighter the nearer it gets to the revolutionary. My friend Dave now seeks change in the cool contemplative glow somewhat removed from the fire, conscious always of the need to care for, and be careful for, the growing flock that surrounds him.

To these 3 I have added a line from the Tao te Ching: “The man who knows when enough is enough, will always have enough.” While this particular guideline has not been particularly helpful in my outward looking life, it has done more to aid in my inward looking experience than anything otherwise has (the exception being my 35 year quest to be a better husband). Those of us who live in the West are under a constant sensory barrage that demands that we submit to the need to acquire. More. More and more of everything. More because it’s, you know, more. To be honest, I gave this little more than lip service until I actually lost quite a bit of  stuff. Being reminded that almost all of it was something I wanted, rather than needed, allowed this guideline to bring an internal peace that was missing.

These 3 original guidelines have served me well lo these 30 years or so. Adding and committing to the fourth has brought me peace in the bargain. They may or not work for you; they may be nothing more than tinder to light the fire of your own guiding principles. Some day perhaps I’ll share the epiphanies of 9/11 and Heinlein that underly the tactical application of these 3 strategies, but there’s plenty to think about in these simple suggestions. “Knowledge is power.” “Perception is more important than reality.” “Evolution is better than revolution.” “Enough is enough.”

Thinking about that charter school for inner city boys where the study of Latin is mandatory…

In my day job I work with folks of various backgrounds, both in terms of education and upbringing. In all walks of my public life I come in contact with an even broader swath of humanity in all regards. I routinely travel up and down the social, economic and educational ladders at work and at play. For the most part, with everyone I meet the language we all speak is English. I live in Cleveland, Ohio, USA after all. Our English, however, is hardly the same.

While we cannot truly escape our origins, as we cannot truly escape our genome, we can choose how we interact in the daily mechanics of society regardless of origin. For better or for worse this begins with how we speak. That old saw, you only get one chance to make a first impression, is especially true when you speak, and especially important because for the most part you can choose not only what you say but also how you say it.

There’s nothing new or striking about this concept, either. You can think of it as verbal situational awareness. You would (hopefully) speak differently to a priest than you would the surfer dude sitting next to you beyond the break. On the phone with the cable company should sound very different I think than on the phone with your BFF. All speech is by definition qualitatively different than a text or an email because speaking implies hearing; speaking and hearing involve the inclusion of inflection, tone, and tempo. Really basic stuff.

Why, then, is it so brutally common to hear such poor English? Poor grammar, improper word usage, a situational tone-deafness? This doesn’t even begin to touch on the concept of working vocabulary (BTW, the person with the largest working vocabulary I’ve ever met is responsible for my  little CrossFit thing). Once upon a time one heard much about “Proper English” or “The Queen’s English.” What happened?

In English we do not have the French equivalent of “Tu” vs. “Vous”. No lazy man’s way to “polite-up” our speech. A certain unearned familiarity is too often presumed. We take way too many liberties with grammar, and frankly we too infrequently make the effort at “polished” English when it’s time to do so. That first impression thing is incredibly affected when you open your mouth to speak, on the up and the down sides. It is equally jarring to hear the word “ineluctable” from a guy in faded jeans and a baseball cap turned backwards (up) as it is to hear “me and Joey are gonna go…” from a guy in a suit and starched collar (down).

The stark reality is that there are no barriers to the “up” version of English. There is no genetic, social, or economic barrier blocking the acquisition of the ability to speak well, and by extension to acquire the situational awareness to know when it is vital to do so. All that is required is the effort to learn that version of English that we know as “proper”, and the effort to learn when. Those young men learning Latin at that charter school are off to a great start. It’s not necessary to speak like this all the time. You can choose to “let your hair down” so to speak–my love for the versatility of the “F-bomb” is well known in certain circles–but a lack of virtuosity in the English domain is a choice.

There are many aspects of a “first impression” over which we may have little control. Don’t choose to let your English be one of them.

Master’s Sunday is the day I think I miss my Dad the most. We’d be on the phone dissecting the action, second guessing each decision and reminiscing about our respective visits to Augusta National (sadly, neither one of us ever played there.). In many ways the game of golf was the tie that bound my Dad to my brother and me. In Jr. High School he invited us into his world; we did whatever it took to stay there.

The older I get the more important my “who” becomes. Thinking about golf today has really brought this home for me. I walked away from golf 9 years ago because I couldn’t stand to be average, let alone not very good. Doing so put way, WAY too much emphasis on the “what”, on the golf itself. It was entirely reasonable for me to take a break from golf after my injury because it literally hurt to swing a club. But 9 years?

Let me be really clear: I don’t miss the game of golf. I played in high school and a bit in college, and I’ve played literally thousands of rounds on some of the most famous courses in America. The game of golf doesn’t owe me anything at all. What I do miss, though, is being in the company of other people (mostly men, I’ll admit) who are doing something that makes them happy. More than that, since you almost always get to choose who you’re playing with, you are always in good company.

It’s been a wonderful day to remember that “who” is so much more important than “what”. I am part of a bunch of middle-aged knuckle-heads who met as fathers of pre-schoolers and then bonded on some of the most God-forsaken dogpatch golf courses imaginable. No matter. We were together. We celebrated the 60th birthday of one of our pals at breakfast where my guys regaled me with side-splitting tales of this year’s golf trip to South Carolina. If they’ll have me, next year my “new game” is likely to produce a few follies that we can laugh about during a breakfast to come.

My brother is an extraordinary golfer, as is my best friend of 40 years. My sister’s husband, too. My son will eventually become a very good golfer; his pride will accept nothing less. Lil’bingo and “Lovely Daughter’s” husband are both eager to play as well. My game will sadly fail to match up, but that’s no matter. How I play is a “what”. It always was, even though it took me an awfully long time to figure that out. What I now hope to get, and what I hope to give each time I get a chance, is to be part of a group that understands that the “what” they are doing is so much less important the “who” that they are doing it with. All of these men have asked me many times to join them, and this year I will finally do just that.

Golf, CrossFit, Cards…whatever. “Who” is the reason you are there.

There are, I think, 5 groups of people around each one of us. True friends occupy the closest orbit, the small and intimate center of the bullseye. The next ring holds our Friendly Acquaintances, folks with whom we share happiness but not necessarily the intimacy, ease, and confidences of true friendship. Surrounding this ring is the one holding our Acquaintances, folks we simply know. Orbiting these concentric rings is a (hopefully tiny) globe of enemies; sadly we all have some. All of this floats in the vast sea of those unmet.

Do you know the difference between a “friendly acquaintance” and a friend? What draws the line for you? How many true friends do you have? What does it take for you to be someone’s friend? Is your bullseye static or dynamic? What moves people into and out of the rings in your friendship bullseye? Is there room in your bullseye for a new true friend? How do you feel when it becomes clear that someone is just a friendly acquaintance and not the friend you thought? How does it feel to make a new friend?

Beth and I have had a very dynamic bullseye of late, prompting me to return to this yet again as I try to make sense of recent events. Old friends lost and found. Discovering friendly acquaintances in our group of friends, acquaintances among our friendly acquaintances. New friends who have arrived through an open side door, unbidden and unannounced, to fill the empty spaces abandoned by others.

One can never have enough friends.