You gotta have friends…

I spent last weekend in Massachusetts with friends…Friday night was a get-together of some of my theater group friends…the rest of the weekend, ending finally mid-morning Monday, was spent with a group of my girlfriends…we talked, we drank, we laughed, we played Bananagrams and Blokus, we shopped and cooked, we went to a Zumba class, we watched all 12 episodes of the first season of Homeland and both football games…whew! What a nourishing, reinvigorating, nurturing few days…wish it could happen more often, but life is life.

This all got me thinking about friends. I grew up in a pretty rural area in Southern California, surrounded by apricot orchards and farms. There were only two elementary schools in town and I went to half of kindergarten, first, second and third grade in one of them, and half of kindergarten, fourth, fifth and sixth grade at the other…this meant that I knew almost everyone in my little junior and senior high schools. I was never in one group or clique…I had friends in most groups, especially those active in drama and musical theater. After high school, I moved away and never came back…I’ve spent most of my life since on the opposite coast. Of course, when I say the opposite coast, I mean up and down the East Coast. Friends here, friends there…some close by, some very far away. Then, along comes Facebook and blogging, which open up my world to old friends and memories…I will never see most of these people again, but that doesn’t diminish their places in my life.

So, I give thanks to all the friends in my life…each of you has made memories that I hold dear…don’t know what I’d do without you.