Ladies in waiting

This mini-courtyard in front of a probably-empty house nearby touched a chord in me when I discovered it. I saw two girlfriends in an abandoned ballroom, and the melancholy feelings it stirred up were hard to identify at first because I'm happy doing what I never thought I would: feathering a nest with a roommate-for-life.

I miss my closest friends, who, like me, have more or less settled somewhere in their native lands after a few years of nomadic life. It’s too bad our ‘base camps’ couldn’t be in closer proximity, but on the other hand our disparate origins are probably why we had so much fun carousing together in foreign lands. Even though jobs and bills and hangovers are still very much a part of your life abroad, it’s somehow easier to sense and step into the ever-present flow of freedom and festivity when far from ‘home.’

Perhaps as you get older your priorities inevitably focus on a point beyond the next weekend, or maybe the urge to party hardy really is fueled by nothing more than an instinct to seek out a mate. Whatever the reason, I do miss the years of fast friends and continual debauchery. I think when I passed by this neglected patio I recognized in the curtained windows and cracked tiles a disused corner of my soul where once loud music and libations never ceased to celebrate the joy of living.

More sober, solitary undertakings may have replaced the bumping and grinding--but writing, designing, teaching, and healing are also ways of cherishing what you love in life. If it’s less exciting to know whom you’re going to wake up next to every morning, then it’s also less exhausting, and more rewarding.

The ladies may be waiting wistfully for the next reunion, but when it comes we’ll have far richer rooms in which to host it.