Mabon Moon of the First Snow
Lonnie and Stefan came to Shadow Mountain yesterday. We had a nice visit, showed them around the homestead and had a deli lunch Kate gathered at King Sooper. In correspondence with Stefan later I gave a voice to a recent recognition about friends:
“I’ve been thinking about making new friends out here. At first, it was a high level need. I jumped into a sheepshead group, tried to connect with the Sierra Club and a group called Friends of the Mt. Evans Wilderness. Then I realized that the friends I made in Minnesota like you and Lonnie have a depth, a history that I will never replicate here. Not enough time.
So, a high priority for me is to maintain face-to-face contact with as many of you as I can. The Woolly retreat is one way and I hope to make it back for the Nicollet Island Inn dinner in December. That way, combined with trips like yours and Lonnie’s, I can stay in relationship with those I love in Minnesota.
I’ll make new friends here, too, eventually, but these will be third phase friends. They can’t share the second phase time I spent with all of you in Minnesota.”
This might sound dismal. But it simply recognizes the truth of the friendships I found in political work with the Sierra Club, among the docent corps at the MIA and in the Woolly Mammoths. These are not to be left behind, but nurtured still. The times of being with many of these friends was episodic even while in Minnesota. So the duration between face-to-face moments may increase, but it also may not.
