What contitutes friendship?

Isn't this picture pretty?  It was taken at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  I was there with over 200 acquaintances.  Imagine not being able to say 200 of my friends.  I once told my mother that I had lots of friends.  My mother, a very wise woman,  told me "If you reach the end of your life and you can count your true friends on the fingers of one hand, consider yourself blessed."

Well, here I am with more road behind me than I see in front and those words echo in my mind.  Mother has been gone for too many years now and I find myself more often thinking like she talked.  So, I got to thinking about how many friends I have actually had and are they still around.  For the first eight years of school I had a very best friend.  Her name was Barbara and I spent one night a week at her house.  Never saw her after grade school.

High school is a blur.  Then I married and moved around a lot so friends were hard to come by.  After the divorce I moved back home to Hutch.  There I became best friends with a waitress named Vi.  She had a daughter the same age as my son.  That one stuck through thick and thin and still exists to this very day.  She is a better friend then I am.  She writes, I read.  She calls, I talk.  I moved to Colorado and she moved to Missouri.  We have both buried our husbands.  I got to go see that girl this spring!

The next lasting friend I made was Frank.  We were in business with him and I liked his honesty and all his family.  He is still in business and lives in this town and I have not seen him for several years, but I still count him as friend.  If I called he would be here in a flash and vice versa.

Then came Renate.  Renate listens when I talk and I listen to her.  She is bluntly honest with me when I am wrong.  She and I use each other as sounding boards. We both work with AIDS clients so we have that to commiserate over; that and attending funerals together.

Then along came Kay, who winters in Texas, but we keep in touch and have breakfast every Wednesday when she is here.  We have in depth conversations and do a lot of gossiping.

So you see there is four friends, each perched on a finger.  I only have room for one more!  You know, either my mother was wrong or I am blessed beyond measure because I have a lot of people that I consider very dear friends.  Back home is Evelyn and Kay, Karen, and my sisters.  Shirley in Kansas City.  Amy in Florida. My dear friend Jade.  And all my Internet friends and that is before I start naming the ones here in Pueblo.   I am not even going to go there because someone will get their feelings hurt.

I have friends who have become lovers and lovers who have become friends.  (I like the latter better.)  I am truly blessed in that I can walk into any place in this town and there is someone I know who is very happy to see me, so I am not alone long.  More often than not their name escapes me, but they don't seem to mind.  This impresses me.  Most people want their name remembered, but my friends do not care.  They love me for who I am, not if I remember their name.

I have few rules that my friends must adhere to and failure to do so gets you off my list of friends and you then become a "this is".  So watch out for that one.  If you are still with me here you are my friend, or my dear friend, or my very dear friend. 

The first rule of friendship is to always be honest.  I gave up lying because I could not keep my stories straight.  So honesty is paramount.  The truth is what it is and should never be altered.  I respect the truth.  Lie even once and we are done.  The omission of a relevant fact is also a lie or at least it is in my book.  You are my friend because I judged you by your words and actions from the first day I met you.  If you neglected to mention that you are a serial killer in your spare time, don't you think I would want to know that?

I am loyal to my friends and I expect loyalty in return.  If you have something bad to say to me, say it to me, not someone else.  We can work out our differences if we know what they are and we face them head on.  Love has to come naturally, but a friendship is worth working to save.

You must respect that I am a Bleeding Heart Liberal.  You do not have to like it when I work with the AIDS clients, or the battered women, or the illegal immigrants, or pile my car with recyclable crap, or stop and give that homeless woman the money in my pocket, or stand nose to nose with a homophobe in the middle of the library and we get thrown out.  You don't have to  like it but you do have to accept it and if my actions embarrass you are free to just walk away.  Just do not attempt stop me or try to correct me.  I am on a roll!  You are free to voice your opinions and I will respect them, but they are yours and part of your conservatism.  It is best we not discuss politics.  LOL

For the most part I try to adhere to the 10 Commandments and so do my friends.  It is nothing we think about, just sort of comes naturally.  So once more I have digressed from the point of this blog entry.  I came on here to decide who to put  on that last finger to fill out my friend list and discovered that I am going to need a lot more fingers!  I love every body and they love me.  It is called making the world go round.  I can not limit my friends, nor would my dear mother expect me to.  So I will just hang on to what I have when the road comes to an end, I will just look back and see who all is still there!

Didjaeverthink?

I have secrets that I will take to the grave.  We all do, I know.  May not be earth shattering to anyone if they knew them, but to me they are sacred.  Well there is only one, really.  No, there are two of them.  One is something that was never a real secret, but I knew.  Wait, make that three.  There was that first one, and then that second one.  At the time people knew, but they forgot.  Those two were never real secrets, but that third one is so secret that only me and God knows it, because the other person who knew has been dead a while and I think that person forgot even before they died. 

Oh, boy did I ever have one of those didjaeverthink days today!  I had what I thought was a friend and I came that close to telling my secrets.  Imagine how I would feel now, knowing just how close we actually weren't, had I told my secrets.  A very wise man once told me, "You know of people.  You do not know a person. Only that person can know himself."  He was right.  I have a face I present to people when I first meet them, but I am not good at keeping that face on and next thing you know, I have a new best friend and I will tell that best friend only the truth about myself.  Well, needless to say, not everyone is honest nor do they want honesty.  So, poof, there went my new best friend.

Needless to say I have a bit of a problem trusting people, so when I do put my trust in one of the friends I make, and they disappoint me, I am crushed.  I am learning lots of little lessons here on this big world of the Internet.  I am learning that as well meaning as people are, and as sincere as they appear to be, it is not the same as setting down at Starbucks and having a conversation face to face.  Eye contact means a lot to me.  I have made friends (?) with several people on the Internet and had gut wrenching conversations with at least one of them, laughed hysterically with another, been advised in business by one, know an other's grand kids by name and thought about a quasi affair with another.  So, why am I sad when one of these faceless figures disappears on me?  Hell, I don't know!

But in my favor, I must say, I still have my secrets.  The key to whether I trust you will be whether I share my secrets.  So far there is no temptation any where.  Like I said I almost told that one guy, but lips are sealed and it turned out well that I kept mum.  I set down to write this blog and things come out of me that amaze me.  You people probably know me better then the people I deal with on a regular basis!  You are my Internet friends.  Some of you are actually family and friends that I know.  Some of you are faraway friends that I have met.  Some of you I will meet at a later date, but the one thing you all have in common is you see the honest, forthright side of Lou.  When I meet a stranger the first thing they say is "I feel I have known you all my life."  I, myself, have never met a stranger! 

The people I meet on the Internet are faceless friends.  Sometimes I have a picture I can put with a face, but there you go.  Is that face the face that actually goes with that name?  One of my friends is apparently a bull dog!  One will not tell if they are male or female.  I have a closeup of Amy's mouth.  I met Jacci in Blackwell, Oklahoma and Ely at the bottom of Missouri.  My son has raised his voice at me more than once over what he refers to as my insane behaviour, but he does not understand.  I do not just run around and meet people wily nily.  I first have a connection with them.  Then I feel their vibes.  And I always say my prayers.

OK, I am willing to bet I have strayed from the topic again.  I know one thing, I am getting hungry so it must be supper time.  I am going to run my spell check (I love that feature),  read this over and see if it makes any sense at all, and if it does I will hit the publish button!

Hey, I understand this and that is scary in and of itself!! 

This is a refrigerator covered with bumper stickers or are they refrigerator stickers?

Well, in  case you do not know where this refrigerator is located, I  am going to tell you!  It is not in my home.  Wish it was, but it isn't.  I especially like the one that says "There is no way to peace, Peace is the way".  Bet you think this is the refrigerator of a Bleeding Heart Liberal, and you are about half right.  This belongs to a woman who is younger than I am, but can remember when it was all about peace and love.  My generation was more the "Beat Generation" with Ginsberg, while Jan was the John Lennon devotee.
I was busy having babies in the 60's and then divorced in the 70's and it was mostly a blur after that.  But I remember the bumper stickers, "If it feels good do it!"  "Insanity is doing the same thing over in the same way and expecting different results." My personal favorite was "Ten Commandments are not multiple choice."

So this refrigerator is in the coffee house I go to in Beulah.  I found this place this spring  when I was wandering around with the tall fellow.  I did not have the privilege of seeing this until my second visit.  I was enthralled, but the tall guy was offended (my first clue). 

This is the lovely proprietress, Jan Miller.  Her place of business is the Stompin' Grounds Coffee Shop.  This broad can rival Starbucks with the selections she has of coffee and tea.  And there is a bunch of breakfast sandwiches and a lunch menu also.  I am not sure if she still does the BBQ on Saturday evening.  Good excuse to go up there and see her I am a thinking!  She is open everyday until 2:00 PM except Monday and Tuesday.  I usually wander in about coffee break time almost any day that grabs me just right.  Like to take my friends up when I can catch one which is not every day, but sometimes.

                                  

There you have my musings for the day.  I have succeeded in making myself lonely for the Coffee Shop so I must now work in a visit to see my friend.  Not going to be today, but very soon.  Maybe I will see you up there!  And if you get there before I do, please be sure you tell my BFF that Lou Mercer sent you and she should be along directly!