A Friend in Need

Hi, Boomers,

I've come down off my high horse. I've railed against the world enough. I am supposed to have learned through my yoga practice that I cannot change the way people in the world operate. I can only pay attention to way I live a conscious life.

However, I truly strayed from my very focused way of living last week, and as I result, I failed again to recognize the birthday of one of the most loyal, beautiful, and endearing friends that I have ever had. Hubris got in the way.

I forgot Cheryl's birthday. I am mortified that I lapsed into unconsciousness and l let my very dear friend's special day pass without acknowledging her divine person.

As we get older, our true friends become more special to us. If they have endured the test of staying loyal and loving for may past decades, they sure need to be accorded our support, love, and recognition. Cheryl called me on Sunday to have our monthly talk and it was only at the last of our conversation that she brought me up short and let it be known that her birthday had passed on June 25. When I fell into a deep funk with her, she assured me that she was not fazed by my oversight. She knew I still loved her. Still.....

I hadn't been very unconscious during the month of June. Most of the time, I was working on my website for my book, Sixty, Sex, & Tango, and I was entertaining myself with the exercise of bio-feedback on the computer. I also thought I could single handedly fight the government. Both are no excuse for my not thinking about those I truly love.

Cheryl has always been my biggest supporter. When I met her in the late 1970's, she had arrived straight from New York and an activist career. I remember being so impressed that she was a Nader's raider. She was introduced to me by a mutual friend and immediately volunteered to write grants for my theater that was in its infancy. She always made herself available to help at any moment. She befriended my friends, my associates at the theater, my children, my husband. We became a band of warriors whose goal was to bring live legitimate theater to Las Vegas, Nevada. It was an impossible task but we did it as we were joyous in our mission. No one was a more important counselor to us all.

Cheryl and I stayed very close friends since our theater days, and she and her family never missed an event in my family from marriages to births to holidays to birthdays. My sons and daughters-in-law consider Cheryl and her husband extended family. She is a constant in all our lives.

We can count on one hand those people in our lives who are meaningful friends. And I have learned something very important from my omission with my dear friend, from my lack of consciousness when it comes to those who love me and who I purport to love. Life is truly an action, not a thought.

May I not falter too many more time with my friends.

Namaste

Joan