Sailing on the Winds of Friendship

There ought to be a carnival, a sky full of colored balloons drifting on the wind with tags on them saying goodbye…goodbye… crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and on around the world on the trade winds of friendship.

I wish I’d moved more slowly, taken more time to arrive at where friendship left off. I wish I had danced and dined more, learned the meaning of glances, or taken note of how quickly time was passing.

Warmth and humor always had me feeling a little tipsy, light-hearted as if I’d eaten a perfectly ripe tomato, and its color had entered my cheeks.

There are a lot of things I don’t yet know or yet understand, and I’m still trying to write about them, not as a writer does, looking for an explanation, but as a man wishing he’d known more about love than he does.

Memories always return, broken, splintered, like shards of affection returning from another universe after being flung far off into space. Fragments still survive, coming back at me speaking of warmth, or friendship, or what goes with what.

Of course, I alone know the truth, all the things I leave out, cast aside on a Sunday, recalled on a Monday as I hurtle into Tuesday…exhausted.

I think balloons taught me about life. The real beauty of balloons is in their flying free, side by side, maybe, but untethered. The breeze caressing them along. I’ve never felt a need to demonstrate courage, or reason to do something right. I’m not perfect, not anywhere close. My stories of friendship are not a definitive roadmap, but rather a journey into the next life…or Wednesday.