They Can’t Afford the Dues

Fall                                                             Fallowturn Moon

Woollies at Stefan’s tonight.  This was our first regular meeting since Regina’s death so our conversation focused on Bill while Bill, St. William as Tom called him, kept turning the focus to Regina or to us.

Bill places his hand over his chest and says he prefers to live life from there, rather than here, and he taps his head.  He says we can all live from the place of love.  “All men could have this in their lives.” He spread his arms to include those of us in the room.

“Yes,” Tom said, “but they can’t afford the dues.”  We have a running joke about our dues-zero.

Bill said, “Exactly.  They feel like they can’t afford the dues.  And they’re high.”  We meet at least twice a month and have an annual retreat for four days.  We work at maintaining our relationships.

Those dues pay off in nights like this.  We can gather in a living room with our hearts open to a friend and he knows he can count on us.  And he can.