Best friends and homecomings

My heart's sister is coming home soon, from darkest Africa and her dear love. Here we are together at Gatorbone, having slipped onto a wide porch that would soon be a stage filled with music. Here we are paused for a moment together, before we ever guessed that she would go so far from home and be so long away.

There is a passage in T.H. White's "The Once and Future King" wherein a kindly badger tells the very young and not-yet-king Arthur about a treatise he's written, explaining why Man has become superior over the other species of the earth. It's about how the animals choose their gifts, how these gifts are granted by God, and most importantly, how the gifts influence the development of their recipients. It's whimsical and funny and if you haven't read it I won't spoil it for you. But my point is that I do believe each of us arrives at the door of life with certain gifts, the influence of which shapes and changes us.

My gift, I think, is friendship. I am blessed beyond measure by friendships that have changed me, and by which I have been incalculably changed. Some friends are already known to you at Eat Here. You know Lis and Judy by their music, and Ms. Moon by her blog. You know Lorie by her recipes, and O'Hare by her dramatic exit. And I hope you will know Lauren and Susan and Mary and Tina and so many others and if you do, you're likely to catch my references to all of them as my "best" friend, for each of them is a sister of my heart.

Come home, sister. Hurry. Hurry.