The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Southern Mail, 1929, translated from French by Curtis Cate
The truest, most loving friends in the world helped us pack our truck and clean our house on a Friday night. Kids raced around, got underfoot and played hot potato. Crazy Phil discovered some 20 year-old homemade pickles in my basement. Despite the corroded lids, despite the fact that the pickles were floating around in a murky, green water filled with unidentifiable objects of plant origin, he ate them. Then he passed them around. Video of that disgusting event here. There was pizza and a little drinking and my girlfriends washed my bathrooms, packed my food, washed my fridges, and slipped care packages of new toys and goodies into the truck for us to discover on our arrival. Their acts of kindness that night filled my heart to overflowing.
Even more blessings awaited us at our new home in Virginia. Our new housemates had vanilla candles burning in every impeccably clean room, more dear and devoted friends helped us unload what we had loaded just hours before, and we shared a meal of very good Chinese food in our dining room to celebrate this new beginning. The next morning, running on adrenaline, I dug into the work of creating a home, but had to pause to satisfy a mysterious craving for fresh salsa. And as expected, eventually the migraine came, forcing me to bed and to rest. But we’re here, and we’re loved, and will forever be indebted to our dear ones.