Friendship – good medicine...

“When things are young they are supple,

when they are old they become stiff.”

– Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching

“A man that hath friends must

shew himself friendly…”

– Proverbs 18:24 - Bible

There is something about aging that in many ways makes life much better. There are little impediments that slow one down. But by and large, as the time passes I find the quality of life getting better and better. A lot probably has to do with diet, exercise, sleep and time to concentrate on things that really matter.

A big piece of life quality, however, has to do with friends I have made since coming to Tucson. A good part of my professional life has been on the road. This made it difficult to develop and sustain friendships in the places I have lived. Here, however, a number of people have entered my life. Some of them are part of a writer’s co-op to which I belong. We meet weekly and work on the manuscripts we are writing. While each of us is quite different, we find meaning in the common goal of writing the best work we can.

Then there is a small group of folks with whom I get together for no reason other than we enjoy each other’s company. There are no common projects or objectives to accomplish. We just like to be around each other. This is big because it has always been difficult for me to develop close personal relationships.

Gail and Frank and Reggie are three of these people. Each of them is different and thoughtful and smart and challenging, and in their own ways add quality to my life. I always look forward to seeing them. We never run out of things to say. We listen to one another and are tolerant of each other’s thoughts and ideas.

Most every week, Gail wanders over to our little home for a Sunday lunch and a Netflix or Amazon Prime PBS mystery series. It began with Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos and has become, with a few exceptions, a tradition. She and Molly are friends and she and I are friends, each for different reasons. The girls love baseball, cats and work together on a local board. Gail and I find common ground in philosophy and spiritual topics. When we are together, there is a lot to talk about.

Frank and I meet weekly to hang out and shoot the breeze. Generally, this includes lunch. We have also done a few things like movies, a museum or two, shooting a little pool, and hiking. But the things we ‘do’ are just an excuse to spend time together exploring the things that interest us. He and I met on an airplane a couple of years ago, and after returning home we got together. It’s been going on ever since.

Reggie and I met in a writer’s workshop at our local library shortly after we both moved to Oro Valley. We took a liking to one another almost instantly. He and I walk in the early mornings every couple of weeks. We finish our treks in padded rocking chairs drinking coffee and chewing the fat…no jokes about old guys on porches in rocking chairs, please. Nothing is rushed. The conversations are easy and never fail to make the two of us feel better about the coming day.

Marcus Aurelius says that human beings were made for social interaction. We are, after all, social creatures…islands of thought – thought machines so to speak, driven by curiosity to find other islands of thought with whom we can interact, floating in the oceans of life. When we do, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Maybe we do get stiffer with age, but the great lubricating antidote is friendship.

- ted