Flung far and wide

Today is a day where I really miss the company of good friends. The weather is absolutely perfect: sunny, warm and just a little breezy. Music from one of several stages at the Stone Arch Festival of the Arts is wafting in though our balcony window. I should be out there in the thick of the festivities...but it's just not the same without people to share it with. Friends to sample various food offerings with. Friends to gawk and admire art with. Friends to conspire, cackle and cry with on a perfect summer day.

But we're so far flung these days. And it seems since I've come closer to 'home,' we've grown even further apart. The occasional text and facebook message appears. But gone seem the days of random postcards, lengthy and detailed epistles and the rambling, slightly annoying but oh so welcome drunk calls.

I'm just as bad. Just yesterday I found several postcards, already addressed and stamped from a trip to the Big Island...just awaiting a short message before being sent on their way.

Even our blogs, started with the intent of staying largely in the loop of each others lives go either un-updated or seemingly unread. Are any of you still out there?

Phone calls go unanswered. Emails unreturned. Occasional bouts of phone tag occur when the urge strikes to have a real conversation again. But we all live such busy lives. Time is precious, schedules often do not coincide and we are regulated to being voyeurs in each others lives instead of active participants. And technologies meant to bring us together only seem to give us reason to stay even further away.

I miss you all. Immensely. None of you can ever be replaced. And I'll raise a beer to each of you at the festival today.