Ive been bad.

Haven't written here recently.I give it up to a combination of recently joining Facebook and the holidays.Its the best I can come up with.

So I am thinking about community. What makes one and what makes it still years and years later. I spent x-mas up in Sara toga where a branch of cousins live. We have this tradition of every two years alternating where we spent the holiday events, one year small local, the other big east coast splash. This was that year. Everyone I grew up with who is still alive was there. Except dad for obvious reasons. And my brother. Because his wife redecorated this year and wanted to stay and home and show off her new floor tile. I am not worried about my nieces growing up with these values.Nope, not one little bit.

So anywho,there we all were. And we are doing the present thing that last all day with breaks for eating good hard salami and a pick up of folks at the airport. I see some of these people at best once a year.But here we are spending allot of cash on one another. And we are good at it. We know our tastes and styles.We enjoy each other very much. How did this happen that the glue stuck?We are still a strong group.

Then last night I went to a bash that a high school friend family has been holding forever. It involves two things that make a party work: the son of the family does lighting for stage and the dad was a puppeteer ( did things with Muppets!) so the decorations are so extreme it shoots joy.They also make this killer champagne punch with Bing Cherry's. Smiley faces.

So there is this clump of us who have known each other from 25 years ago.Some of us have been more in touch than others. Its mostly the,I saw you at so and sos party two years ago-right?, sort of thing.And we are catching up ,pleased with our grownup self's.And E ( who is leaving Aids research to do massage and body work!) says she is tired and wants to go sit down. So we all go into our old friends youth bed room.Our verging on middle aged self's are sitting on the floor,on the bed.Chat -chat-chat go we. We are fully our selves again. At one point her brother peeks in the door and says,"Spooky. Haven't thought I would see this sight again."

We are a bonded group.Sealed.How did that happen?Was it that we knew each other in our growing up?Could such a dynamic happen now? I am a member of different community's presently. In 20 years will I still look at any of them as still mine?

This is as deep as I go on one cup of coffee on a Sunday morning.