Category: Friendship - A Cottage by the Sea

Let Evening Come

1/9/2022

My best college friend died in her sleep yesterday morning at her brother’s home. She was ill for just couple of months; was hospice for one of those months. A good death, as we might say. I will miss her but am grateful for our friendship of unconditional love.

Love,
Bobbi

Let Evening Come
BY JANE KENYON
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t

Keeping connected

11/14/2020

Keeping connected! An important theme during these intense times, even for those of us who like silence, solitude, and simplicity and sometimes like to be alone. This weekend I’ve been writing notes on ‘Keeping Connected’ postcards that my church is sending out to members.
      “But what about my close, close friends?” I ask myself. Being a self-contained person, content with my own companionship, I can easily slip into my own world and be peaceful. Fine for me, but not always the way I want to be for my friends, without whom I wouldn’t have this comfort.
    In some ways we can take our friendships for granted. We know we will be there for one another. But that’s not an excuse for sliding off the daily radar screen. So, I apologize for not keeping connected as personally as I want to be. In truth, I am apologizing more to myself than to you. And so, I forgive myself.
           The gifts we give each other help us be our best selves.

Long-time friends

6/23/2018

I was away three nights visiting long time friends. My sister Alice I’ve known since the day I was born because she is two and half years older than me. That makes her the longest-time person I know. Debby and I started playing together when we were two, so that makes us very long-time friends. Jeanne and I met in college, which feels like a long time. Memories of Alice circle the family, of Debby it’s riding tricycles, of Jeanne it’s chatting in our college dorm.
Here’s something about my visit that has nothing to do with long-time memories. I was without wifi accesses for my computer--only email on my phone. An excellent spiritual practice, I decided; the world got along just fine without me, maybe not fine, but it got along.

Many best friends~

3/18/2016

A best friend. There’s an implication that we only have one, but really don’t we have many? My official best friend and I have know each other since we were two. How lucky is that? Very. She is my best friend.
     However, I also have many best friends: my husband, kids and grandkids, siblings, teacher friends, divinity and church friends, new friends, long-time friends, and even friends with whom I only chat at the supermarket. We all have different histories together and offer one another our best unique something. Some of these best friend are ones I don’t see often but when we get together we pick up easily, getting right to our special best friend topic.
     I have a several best friends who have never been involved in my every day life. We haven’t met each other’s family or visited each other's home; in many cases our life style, background, current experiences, age, ethnicity, faith tradition, you name it, are different. Very likely we met by chance, perhaps at a conference, while traveling, or on the internet, but regardless, in an instant we connected soul to soul. We are most trustworthy in keeping each other's secrets, because just think about it, who would we tell?
     You readers on this blog are another kind of best friend for me, and perhaps I am for you. I know a few of you, but not many. I tell you things I might not tell other best friends. I put something out there for you to choose to listen or not, read or delete. Although public, the friendship feels safe. Thanks.

Silence, solitude and simplicity with friends in Maine~

7/21/2015

One can have silence, solitude and simplicity when visiting long-time friends. We are in Maine, very grateful for the hospitality. Nothing like getting up early when someone has set the coffee just waiting for me to push the button. With that, Jim and I headed over the rocks to the shore. The fog was coming in but we could hear a lobster boat making its rounds. Now, as I sit here surrounded by peace, I can smell the bacon cooking. I was just asked if I wanted blueberries pancakes. Very grateful!

Gems that bind us~

1/16/2015

I’ve had a chest cold, nothing very bothersome but it’s kept me close to home and in a pattern of activity and rest, activity and rest, which I must admit is to my liking. In summary, a built in excuse not to do anything I don’t want.

Of course, I’d get tired of this if it weren’t for the fact that this slowing down has pushed me into a deeper desire, for and understanding of, solitude. I don’t need to be with friends all the time in order to know that we are there for each other. A occasional email or meeting offers the gems that keep us bound together; details aren’t as necessary now. I think of my mom in her later years. She kept up with friends though a card, a telephone call and perhaps a luncheon date, but she didn’t need the reassurance of continual contact. I just wonder if it was the same for them?

Companion for the journey~

7/30/2014

At the moment I have many friends who are struggling with illness. Let me be blunt, several (but not all) have cancer and have been told that their condition is terminal; hospice is part of the conversation. Others are facing surgery with the hope a life-sustaining cure.

This morning I thought of all of these friends as the following from the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge came up on my screen. I believe this speaks to everyone, those who practice a religious faith and those who are more comfortable considering themselves spiritual. Regardless, all our hearts are open at these times.

"When life is hard, what I need most is not always what I want. What I want is for life to be easy. What I want is for someone or something to come along and make it all go away. But what I need is tenderness. What I need is to be loved. What I need is a companion for the journey." James Koester

Tea and talk~

2/26/2014

A long-time friend came to visit yesterday. She’s a writer and so among other things, we talked about our writing. Who is our audience? Including one group of readers might turn another away. What about redundancies? Just because the idea is important to me doesn’t mean I need to keep saying it, nor, for that matter, does it preclude that others will even be interested. Then there are the caveats in writing about family, especially where memoir is concerned.

My writing flowed this morning. Maybe putting those questions on the table was what I needed to climb over some obstacles. I’m also thinking about other writer friends I might chat with. We always need our peers.

Try happiness~

1/12/2014

Yesterday I attended the memorial service for my friend Denny, a friend for 45 years who died at age 90. Evidently she happily faded away, which is what all of us would expect from her. I remember Denny telling me that when she was a little girl she noticed that she often felt sad. “So one day I decided to pretend to be happy. And you what? I started being happy and I’ve been happy ever since.”

"I'm writing!"

11/23/2013

Two days ago on my way home from the cottage I took a detour to Boston on the T to meet a long-time teacher friend for dinner. She was in town to attend the national conference of NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), one that I was involved in for many years back in my teaching days. It was wonderful to reconnect with so many friends and to hear them taking about students and teachers, not for common core standards and national testing.

     As I sat at the Elementary Section gathering, it became clear to me how far away I was from my teaching days. The buzz of ideas that would have excited me, now made me only smile and think: “I had my turn; now the enthusiasm goes to the next generation.”

     “What are you doing these days?” I was asked over and over again. I told about my divinity degree, my hospice work, my family, my cottage, and then,

       “I’m writing!”

     My response seemed more than satisfying and I wondered why. Then I got it. These teachers believed that writing began before kindergarten. They just saw me continuing the process.