Shadow Puppet Storyteller

(Friendship) ROUND ONE Why don't you write it out?

What an ego I have to let my personal life get away from me. I have headed the bow of my ship into the very force of the waves. A friendship can still crash deathly upon the sharp rocks near a calm harbor if everything is done "right." How our friendship remains despite the sense of being off course, is the main part of the question. Can you hear the wail of Sirens out to mesmerize my crew, and thus sabotoge me at the helm of my destiny? Will a mutiny at the core of my own heart defeat my desire to keep a long-time friendship pure? Only forty miles distance separates you from me. It is not an ocean. And I told myself nearly four years ago, the drive was hardly a burden for either one of us.

What actions can I take now, my friend?

What a long way our friendship's history has travelled!

Having only pen and paper, phones and lockers available to us when we started this relationship, our communication was filled with an exhilaration of bounty. Multi-page notebook paper notes passed hands. Hours on the phone was snuck in while discussing homework assignments. Then, I think of that paramount trust, knowing each other’s locker combo.

All that gives way to modern cell phones that slip into the pouch or pocket. The electronic media – email, web cams, instant messaging, smileys, avatars, etc. are now available, and nearly instantaneous. I think I suffer more loneliness because of each new option. It’s no longer, “Please be there – pick up the phone, as it rings without answer. Instead, I grow impatient with out even trying the old phone routine. My computer’s on – certainly your computer is too. There’s the email from yesterday that I sent, and I start to invent reasons you withhold a response.

I could judge myself harshly – I have. Instead – I should be pleased that you are in my thoughts. How I love my ability, and that of my creative source when I can accept that our friendship lives, even if we do not tend to it meticulously. It’s a California winter and I know how easy it is to disregard the weeding and the watering. I so often think of you when I wake in the morning, after catching only a few hours of sleep. Children bicker in the distant deep of the house, but are quieted quickly. I pull blankets and pillows closer about me – I cannot intrude on the morning routine of my family. If I am up, it introduces a monkey wrench to the ferris wheel motion of the day. I am not prepared for attention to switch to me some mornings. Why are children almost always ready for a new day? Even if each chooses to show up unwashed and nearly naked, there’s joy for the new day.

Counting up the blessings I have due to friendships causes such pleasure. There is good reason to recognize and be appreciative for counting you as a friend at every chance I get. I should not let it be a day of despair if I determine there are only a few friends there; maybe, only one available. It is a joyful day for me, like the children, whether an abundance of friendly comfort is apparent or is not. I will not downgrade my own social capacity on a spreadsheet of how many friends I list. When did this even become a competition? And, in this accounting folly, who am I really competing against?

Can my reaching out to change the nature of our friendship be any violation of your wholeness and my truth? – Or is it the demonstration of the same? Where the energy of the universe is conceived, there, a space for my friend, and friends-to-be, is ever-expanding. I cannot control the indwelling Spirit’s desire for experiencing friendship in dynamic ways. The expression of enjoyment is a powerful component that I invite. Through a Source that needs expression, I am a child with friends at my beckoning, once again.

This is how I envision it happening: There is a metamorphosis possible when I simply hold my hand out. It is more than an invitation - it is a fearful pleading when the monster is creeping ever closer. What happens when I cannot see either it, or you approach to pull me to safety? If I do not have confidence in the friendship and whether we are communicating on the most basic level, how can I be anything, but blind?

Sometimes I want to strain the reach of that metaphorical hand when something beyond an innocent contact is entertained. The thought of extending that reach outside the paved areas we walk together does create a differnt path - is it still considered the one less travelled? The fork in the road is this: There will always be only what is – where lips only move air. It forms in thought as an ungiven kiss. Along this path lies a chastity and fidelity that has a special place. The other option consists of the fantasy that is fairy’s wing-thin. More than once I have drowned myself in a dream of experiencing a different body’s lasting hug.

I dream, but live my life with honor in not moving on the desire. Much more content imaginings come when I can envision you as the friend I can call, "my confessional friend." In my confession, it is the friend that is capable of taking my shame, named or not, and placing it in a holy space – as a secret told and never spoken of again is placed. I trust this place of comfort that you hold for me. Do you know that I hold a place of comfort for you? Do you know it with certainty, as I do? Is Chivalry clearly understood between you and I? You think I’ve changed topics, but no. To be understood in what I ask is all – to be intimate but honest confessors of what our souls hold for each other. The lady’s virtue cannot be called into question when the purity and truth of fidelity vows are exactly what we meet to discuss. O’ friendly knight, simply fill my heart with your attention.