(I wish I lived) Close to you

Someone, I won't say who (but his name rhymes with "hobby" and we grew up under the same roof), likes to make good natured fun of my obsession with capturing moments, events of sometimes great (or of little) significance, with my fabulous new digital camera only to then summarize them with the sweetest and most numerous of words possible. This post, and these emoticons - :0 :-) ;) ;-)> - and this melancholy song are being to presented to you today in his honor.

Oh friends who converged at our home in Indiana for a quick weekend reunion, I want to thank you! To Beth and Jared, our former house mates and co-owners of the "Commune," our old Chicago two-flat, I appreciate you driving yourselves and our godson, Thomas, and the ADORABLE twins (Russell and Elliot) all the way from Iowa just so we could spend a couple of days together. To Greg and Marian, Mary's godparents, and the two nicest and most delightful individuals you could imagine, it was wonderful, as always, to bask in your calming presence. To our family members, who helped with cleaning and cooking and provided plenty of opportunities to laugh uproariously, I am grateful that you're stuck with me, and all my sappiness, by way of birth and marriage.

Standing together in Church this morning, I was imagining how utterly spectacular it would be to transplant each and every one of you from your current locations to various houses on my street - to walk on over and say "hello" on a random week day afternoon, to share a music stand with you in the choir, to see you whenever I wanted, to be your neighbor. But alas, I'll have to settle for these every so often occasions when our schedules align miraculously. I'll have to continue on with the fashioning of frequent and sentimental blog posts, posts that help me pause and drink in all that is good and salvific and meaningful in my life. I'll have to immediately start planning a "next time"...

please come back soon.