Elemental Interaction

The words "friend" and "acquaintance" are often abused. I have noticed that certain cultures and subcultures have a tendency to call people they have just met and shared fleeting time at a bar with "friends". Other cultures seem reluctant to call even the most intimate relations they have known for years by that same name. I have been fortunate to be able to wander the globe a bit over my life time and it is interesting to wash up against hundreds of strangers on a regular basis, greeting, trading casual remarks, polite comments, overlooking rude mumblings and then sometimes bouncing up against people that one seems to have known for a multitude of millenia. What a sensation of warmth and home, when one begins an exchange that seems to be carried over from many late night philosophy discussions or coffee house political battles! Somehow it is like being one of those floating shells in the ocean that after washing up on the shore nestles for a time on a warm sand beach in some seaweed with other similar treasures.

I have just encountered such a peson, only to learn today that this treasure will be leaving my life again for a job in the big city ...and the tide comes in and we are once again swept back into the amniotic fluid of the sea. Friend or acquaintance? We have known each other 5 scant weeks. The depth of our exchanges belies the time. The words reify and diminish the experience.The sea is swirling with opportunity and life, but made of salt water, the same as tears.