Another Day in the Country
Spending time with friends
© Another Day in the Country
Connections we make in life are one of the most important functions of being human. They define what kind of person we are, remind us of who we have been, and enable us to grow and develop new skills. Our connections are beyond ordinary value.
Time is like money — we have only so much — and I have spent mine with a variety of friends who have become important connections in my life.
One of them is Jimmy — a prisoner as long as I’ve known him, who recently has been moved from death row, with his release pending — an amazing turn of events.
Every August for the last 40 years, I have received a birthday card from Jimmy. His is always the first, with his card arriving long before August is in its teens, where my birthday actually resides.
I asked him how incarcerated people go about getting cards to send to relatives and friends. He tells me that individuals and organizations donate cards to the prison — old cards, cards that didn’t sell, bulk cards, generic cards. I imagine him sorting through them to find just the right one for me.
“Wishing you every good thing that life can bring,” this year’s card said.
He wrote in his inimitable hand — with red ink, no less, because he’s an artist — “For August 16th, 2025, with love and best wishes, from your friend Jimmy.”
Gary and Norma became my friends 65 years ago. Norma sent me a gorgeously embossed Hallmark card that read, “The best things in life aren’t things — it’s people like you. Happy birthday.”
She added “Who is lucky enough to be friends for 65 years?”
We are! I laughed right out loud — a gift in itself. We’ve lasted this long, and we’re still long-distance friends through thick and thin.
We have lived in a variety of states and even countries through the years. Very now and then — but not often — I still get to see them and travel with them.
My newest friends, Dennis and Jane, sent me a card that had the Mona Lisa on the front, wearing a mask. Inside it said, “Keep smiling and do whatever it takes to stay healthy.”
Jane had written underneath, “like go to a nice museum, maybe,” since she knew we were going to Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas last weekend.
Do you know how long it takes to make a new friend? According to a 2018 study, it takes 50 hours of time together to move from acquaintance to casual friend and more than 200 hours before someone is considered a close friend.
Our artist friends from Lindsborg have become close friends. They came to celebrate my birthday with us here in Ramona on Sunday, so I had the fun of cooking for them.
They are great sports and love unusual food. The meal, the choice of table setting, and the beverages were my gift to them.
For dessert, I decided to make lemon sorbet, served in a hollowed-out lemon half, drizzled with lemon juice and salt bits.
We’d ordered this delightful dessert at a restaurant in Santa Fe this summer on our road trip, and I wanted my friends to experience it, too. So, I laboriously turned lemon rinds into “dishes,” made the juice into ice cream, and ran around the yard collecting ornamental grass spears and tiny flowers for garnish.
It was a work of art and the only offering during the meal that stopped conversation in its tracks!
Soon after our lunch, they had to head home — the next day being a working day with appointments and obligations.
After they’d gone, my sister and I sat on the porch. Everything was very quiet in Ramona. I had missed something in this last encounter. What was it?
It was time! Usually, when we get together, we sit for hours around a table, talking, laughing, sharing, remembering, exploring, even playing games. But this time, there wasn’t time for that, and I missed it.
Everything else was there: the commitment to the date and time (that in itself is a gift to a friend), the punctual and exuberant arrival (another gift), surprise presents, laughter, gratitude, and delicious food in a beautiful setting — all gifts.
But time, with its incessant ticking — that we all know so well is limited by other duties, needs, wishes, jobs, people — was calling, and it was, in my book, a too-soon time to go.
I probably would have kept these friends of mine indefinitely — late into the afternoon, the evening, playing games, sitting on the porch, discussing the latest political shenanigans, watching the ducks, looking at pictures, having another cup of coffee — but they had other “promises to keep,” as Robert Frost so famously said, “and miles to go before I sleep.”
My grandson, Dagfinnr, has just started college. He’s going to meet some people there who will become friends, and hopefully he’ll be able to keep them as friends for years and years.
“Finding a good friend isn’t easy,” I tell him, “and when you find them, you are going to invest lots of time with them, so choose wisely,” I admonish.
Of course, he’s invited to bring friends here to visit his Baba and spend another day in the country.
P.S. I wonder whether that coming-to-Ramona part will ever happen? Of course, you’ll be the first to know about it when it does!