"We are all just walking each other home."
~Ram Dass
When I was a child, perhaps 7, I had a jewel of a friend. God, were we lucky. Part of the beauty of it was our access to one another. We both came from big families, three siblings each, so getting rides was probably not the norm. This great fortune allowed us for long days together where we would play under the trellis in the magic of her backyard or comb each other's hair in my rainbow papered bedroom or jump in crunchy leaf piles until darkness snuck in. And when it did, much to our chagrin, we would have to part. And I can remember on a number of occasions we would "walk each other home." If she was at my house, I would walk her home; when we arrived there, she would walk me home. In my memory, this went on for some time until we would depart half way. I picture us there in the middle of Greenleaf Drive, embracing and turning away. Our heads down; our hearts tender.
The image of my childhood friend and I doing this popped into my head a couple of weeks ago when I was speaking to my dear friend who lives in Australia. She was expressing her desire to come to the States but just couldn't imagine mustering the energy for such a journey with two little ones. I fantasized about doing what I did some 35 years ago, but this time on a large airplane crossing oceans. I was scheming up ways that I could, "walk her home."
Simultaneously, I saw this quote that I have seen many times by Ram Dass, "we are all just walking each other home." And I wondered, how can we continue to walk each other home? Perhaps these days "walking someone home" means reverting to old school communication techniques: dialing a number, sending a letter or just plain old showing up on someone's doorstep.
Who knows, maybe I will just take a jetliner across oceans to literally walk my friend home. And our hearts will be tender and full.
