Before it is too late, go out there and find someone who, in your opinion, believes, assumes, or considers certain things very strongly and very differently from you, and just have a basic honest conversation.

It will do both of you good.

Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

You felt she’d done a thousand secret things to her eyes. They needed no haze of cigarette smoke to look at you out of sexy and fathomless, but carried their own along with them. New York must have been for her a city of smoke, its streets the courtyards of limbo, its bodies like wraiths. Smoke seemed to be in her voice, in her movements; making her all the more substantial, more there, as if words, glances, small lewdnesses could only become baffled and brought to rest like smoke in her long hair; remain there useless till she released them, accidentally and unknowingly, with a toss of her head.

Thomas Pynchon, V.

The world that formed me was composed of stay at home moms, working class dads, friendly neighbors, and simpler times. We grew up just 4 houses from the beach. Childhood summers beckoned us to roam all over the grey sand landscape, swimming, building sand castles, getting sunburned, and awaiting the ice cream truck. My beloved mother would make our lunches, fill up the tall thermos bottle, and pack a big canvas beach bag full of towels, as she schlepped us to the hot sand. Once there, my sister would cling to mom, while my brother and I would immediately make a bee line for the foamy ocean, diving under the incoming waves, with friends, while mom spread out our colorful towels, setting up basecamp.
Lots of other mothers with kids in tow, would spread out all around us, as each family’s colorful beach towel staked its claim on the hot sand. When my brother and I tired of our play, we would drag ourselves to our “cabana’ shelter as we quickly munched down tuna fish or chopped chicken sandwiches nestled between two slices of Wonder Bread, sometimes with a bit of sand on those windy days. After lunch, it was mandated that we wait 30 minutes before going back into the sea. 30 minutes to an 11 year old boy felt like a whole summer, as brother and I staged our child protest, which never seemed to do much good.
As we played the play of youth, we anticipated other treats that only summer can bring. Like riding the colorful whirling rides at the other end of the long beach. My father driving the five of us in our beat up station-wagon to eat pizza or roast beef sandwiches at Kelly’s. We loved Kelly’s, but so did everyone else, as the long lines often went all the way to the curb of the wide sidewalks.