Got Friendship? Enliven Life

Enlivened! Friends First, Ethan & Annie Power Couple of ListenIn Pictures. Image: M. Makhene.

Desert Flowers: Waris Dirie & Liya Kedebe.

I cling to two Persian loves in meditations on friendship--Rumi &Shams-e Tabrizi; Gilgamesh &Enkidu.  Rumi, “The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” And Gilgamesh grieving Enikdu, "How, O how could I stay silent, how, O how could I keep quiet? My friend whom I love has turned to clay: Enkidu my friend whom I love has turned to clay. Am I not like him? Must I lie down too, never to rise again?"

Friendship enlivens life--creating an ocean's ripple from our fleeting passage and electrifying forgettable moments with silly gossip and giggles. A friend is a shared smile and lightened little secret, how else to explain the unlikeliest coincidence that my Albanian friend and I both dreamed of joining a nun at the exact same time, inspired by the exact same convictions from two very separate corners of the earth? A friend is recurring humility and loving yourself compassionately and deeper still, how else to look at you after seeing yourself the way only a friend does? 

And a friend is someone I owe Van-Leeuwen Artisan bourbon and Tahitian vanilla ice-cream and thick chocolate fudge worth worshiping for the KoKOFIFI post ListenIn Pictures greeted me with this morning. 

Hope you're finding mischief with friends and emboldened by the example+love of your friends. Am still in LOVE with H&Ms beautiful ode to friendship--2010 Winter Holidays Campaign. Can't all Campaigns be this democratically orgasmic?