I recently reconnected with my old friend Kort, and we walked through my old friend Tennessee Valley to the sea. As I walked this old familiar trail, I delighted in the way that you can ease so comfortably back into an old familiar friend. Unlike with a new friend, old friends don’t need your back story. Often, they are the back story. They know what makes you tick, they know where your insecurities lie. And so you can leave them aside and just be. With old friends, you can quickly get to the heart. It had been a while since I had taken my walks in nature, and it had been a while since I had written anything creatively. My work-related writing has consumed me and sadness has pulled me into myself. I think in many ways, I have been asleep for the past 5 years. I’m still half asleep, but I feel myself emerging. How thrilled I am to rediscover my old friends as I wake. Ah, yes, this is what I loved about them. This is what I love about me. I remember this feeling! I remember being turned on by life, by drinking in the world with a passion, by being infinitely interested in the words of the people I admire, by moving and growing and breathing the air. And so they converge, as the trails converge at the Tennessee Valley beach, at the sea where the tides come in and the tides go out. All these old friends have somehow, without a word, fallen in step beside me again, quietly joining me on my journey. People, nature, walking, writing, my belief in possibility…one by one, they fell back in step when I wasn’t looking. I feel such comfort in their presence. I hope they stay a while. 

 

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