It’s rare that we truly perceive beginnings or endings, unless they arrive stark and undeniable, like a birth or a death. Most of the time we live in the murky middle, moving from one moment to the next without really noticing the edges. Only when we choose to consciously mark time, by stepping away from it, do those thresholds reveal themselves. To do that, we have to pull back from the constant busyness and the endless transacting of hours: “not enough” of them here, and “too far off” from now. You know the drill.
The marking of time is one of the hallmarks of good friendship. True friends help you see how far you’ve come since then, how every day has led you to today, and remind you that you’re capable of tomorrow.
The testament of real friendship is that you are remembered and reimagined at the same time.
That is what Thursday was for me. Up on a rooftop in Santa Monica, two of my best friends and I sat together for four hours, weaving in and out of the nuances of each other’s lives. We named things in the way only ‘besties’ can, as if by naming them, we were both noting their significance and imbuing them with meaning.
This gathering was a celebration of many life moments, and in particular a chance to be together one last time before I leave for London on Monday, where I’ll spend the next six months, aside from a brief holiday return.
As we turned over each stone, a theme began to surface. All of us are stepping into a Fall that feels like a season of second chances. We are returning to a similar terrain, but with a different invitation. The ground might be familiar, but it is asking of us a new courage, a new way to meet it.
And isn’t this the work of a human life? To walk again into places we thought we knew, and find them speaking to us as if for the first time. The same relationship with a parent, but now through the lens of aging. The same promise of marriage, but spoken as a new vow with a new partner. Or the same long-term union, but inhabited with new curiosity. For me, the same craft, but taken up with clearer eyes. How do we make the most of this ‘Familiar Unknown’?
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