A Visit is as Good as a Rest

I am day two of three with my sweet friend Heidi. At this very moment, her house is peaceful and quiet, all her people and her own self out and about for the morning. I am sitting in her living room with a few of the acres of green that were her growing up view and play place.  Now she and Mark live in her growing up house and their own kids are doing their own growing up in the rooms and spaces that were hers.  It is so lovely this sun-shiney morning, and I am so thankful to be here to experience it first-hand.

This sojourn from home into the lands of my Other Loves has been so rich and deep and troubling and restful and blessing-full and I'm just not sure what to do with it all.  But it has reminded me how required it is to Be With each other.  I have obviously managed to stay connected with that First Family of mine and with the Pfisterers and with Mark & Heidi.  The telephone and email and facebook and even the occasional piece of real mail allow for that. 

But those things don't allow for the... I don't know what it is.  But whatever it is, it isn't missed until I'm living with it again and I realize that it had been missing, was needed. I don't mean that I need to be living with them. I don't, and of course the world doesn't allow for us to live with or near every person we love. But making a way to be with each other from time to time makes a way for us to love each other, to know each other and to feel known by the other in a way that is soul-feeding and good.

I am out of words about this, but I have wept more than once this week with the Truth of it all.  And of course, in the corner of my heart, the whisper that affirms and says "Of course. That's why I came to Be With You.  Emmanuel.  That's what loving each other looks like."