Friendship and Inspiration

I am overcome with inspiration.  It seems beauty and delight surround me and overwhelm me making it impossible to chose which thought to cling to.  But I'll try...

Twice this week I've had dinner with friends.  Not that the word friends could really suffice.  These are the friends who show up.  You know, the kind who drop everything when you say it is a crisis.  The first ones to the hospital at the birth of my children and the near death of my son.  We have cried in bathrooms gripping each other as if the world were crumbling around us.  We have laughed thick, meaty laughs over lemon drop martinis.  We have stayed out until 5 dancing and drinking.  And we have gone to bed early to prepare for our 5 am call to play on the ice with frozen eyebrows and coffee breath.  We have studied, worked, dreamed, and grown together.  Graduations, engagements, weddings, baby showers, births, even death.  The thought of these women fills me with emotions.  Gratitude.  Longing for years gone by.  Sweet, sweet memories.  Joy... lots of joy.   Hope for them.  I feel immense hope for them and their families.  I truly love their children, they are extensions of them; strong, vital, deep, intellectual, tragic and victorious.  These glorious women whom I call friends, are wild women.  Wild women of the woods; mysterious and earthy, sophisticated and whimsical. 

My intention is to profile each of the women in my life here.  As tribute to them and also for you to know them as I do, to inspire you. 

I am ruminating lately on becoming my truest self.  Being authentic, and maybe even quirky.  Finding my own creative path through life and accepting myself as I am.  I think at the heart of me, the desire to be a photographer, a therapist, my childhood dreams to be a writer; these are all branches of the same tree.  At it's roots is inspiration.  I dream to inspire you.  And as a miraculous boomerang gift, inspiration is what I get in return.  The universal rule of all spirituality; you get what you put out there.  Smile and the world smiles with you and other cliches. 

So look forward to meeting my friends.  These fascinating women will amaze you and hopefully the photos of their children will inspire you as well. 

And to you, my loves, ladies close your eyes briefly today and see yourself on the dark ice of Wisconsin before the early dawn's glow.  See how your breath moves like fog in front of your lips and look to me, smiling back at you in the dark and know that I love you.  Strengths and flaws, even cheating at scrabble.  My love for you is strong and lasting and I am so ever grateful for you and your presence in my life.