It's been a year....won't you help?

I just looked at the calendar, and realized I've been in the South for a year. Actually, a little OVER a year, because I left New England on March 25th of 2005 for the long drive toward the equator.

Twelve hours later, I stopped, in what is now "home."

It's taken a year, but I'm starting to feel like it is indeed home. I know the back roads and the pretty drives, the local parks and shopping areas, the way around traffic jams and which grocery store has the best produce. I know where the hardware store is and how much it costs to buy a waffle cone ice cream at The Corner, I know NOT to try to drive anyplace on Sunday at noon, and I've seen Spring come in twice.

I'm putting down some roots and starting to feel comfortable. It takes me a while.

However, Rob made me think about old friends today, because he's feeling the loss of proximity to one of his dearest friends as she goes through a difficult time. This prompted me to dwell, perhaps a little morosely, on the fact that I don't even have to know that the friends I left back North are going through a tough time to miss them terribly, and thought knocks against the hollow place in my heart and resonates with their absence.

It's been a year, and I still miss them. A lot.

Some people are just like that.

=============================

Thank goodness for e-mail and phone calls! These friends and I have burned up some bandwidth in the past year, with almost daily e-mails and occasional phone calls. I don't know where I'd be without those tools of immediate gratification. The ability to stay in touch whenever one wants to fills up the hollow place a little, which is a grand thing.

A few months ago when I started this blog, I offered a couple of those northern friends a chance to guest blog. To my amazement, so far they haven't taken me up on this tremendouse offer, but I am an optimist and hold out hope that they'll come through for me and offer up some part of their very capable selves for your reading enjoyment. The beauty part is that there's an excellent chance that they would be more amusing and insightful than I ever COULD be.

At the very least they would offer a fresh perspective on life and all its mysteries, and probably tell far better jokes than I do.

Here's the thing - I need your help shaming them into it. They need a virutal kick in the butt to get them going. Won't you please tell Q and RI Red that you want to hear from THEM sometime soon? If we work together I'm sure we can chip away at their defenses and get them to find their voice on the internets.

Thanks, in advance, for your help.

Tiff