That’s What Friends Are For

Just shared a BBQ dinner at our place with two of my closest friends. I’ve known Robin for 45 years and Alan for not much less. Yet it’s not like we see each other often (though that may change since they’ve recently moved to the same suburb). It’s not the frequency of contact however, that makes some people the sort of friends who you feel are a part of your life and always will be. There’s little to distinguish these true friends from family. You can go sometimes for years without seeing each other and then pick up the conversation as if it was just a day or two since you were last talking. There’s a level of affection that’s more than just ‘friendly’. Friends in this category of relationship are the ones who give back to you. Every time you see them (or even just think about them) there is the knowledge that you have been confirmed as who you are. Your sense of yourself is reinforced in the recognition that you are someone important to the other. It is of course, another form of love.

 

An epigram for the day:

 

Love is always there

In our lives and in our hopes

Making all things well

Ruari Jack Hughes

 

Party Time

Bar in Dublin 2009
Dublin 2009

You win some, you lose some. The ALP just won back the WA State seat of Fremantle (predicted) and lost the overall election to the Liberal/ National alliance (also predicted). I live in Fremantle, so, like I said, you win some, you lose some.

This was all happening while I was enjoying being at a concert with the Kill Devil Hills at the Freo Arts Centre. A good night. The band has improved enormously since I last heard them live some years ago.

It’s late and the brain has largely gone to mush so no more chat, just this:

Everybody looks pretty on Saturday night

Can I get you a drink, she asked, taking me by surprise

She’d come in about six or seven minutes ago

Took a stool a metre along the bar from where I was

Slowly working through my third beer for the evening

There aren’t many men who would reject that offer

And I certainly wasn’t among them, not this night

When I reliably expected to spend it alone

Just talking to the bar attendant and maybe my beer

A nod of appreciation was enough, she called for another

Of whatever I was having, moved closer bringing her arm

In touch with mine, smiling quietly while raising her glass

As the next round of beer arrived, I raised it in reply

She wasn’t in any hurry, sat sipping at the green concoction

In the long stemmed tube she held between finger and thumb

I thought I’d wait her out, let her set up the conversation

As she’d already set up the drinks, casual and confident

There are several possibilities for the direction things could go

The years had taught me that I wasn’t much at prediction

Added to that, I’d lost the knack of initiative if I ever had it

Whatever was going to happen would take its own time

Her drink was almost finished, she turned to me again

Don’t talk much, do you, she wanted to know, eyes wide

I suppose I don’t have much to say, I answered round the rim

Of my beer, then smiled at the silliness of it and that was enough

Well, talk’s not always necessary, she told me in the moment

Before she leaned in and kissed me full on the lips, lingeringly

When she stopped, I still didn’t say anything, though I understood

Very well where our conversation was going, and still waited

I called for another round of drinks and set money on the bar

Everyone understood these were the last for the evening

We dawdled over them in comfortable silence, not talking

Just letting our proximity say what little needed to be said

Did the night develop into anything of consequence, did it go on

Not really, it seldom does work out like the movies pretend

I hadn’t anticipated that it would, and so wasn’t disappointed

Yet I hoped as we left the bar, hoped that tonight it might.

Ruari Jack Hughes