Forty year friends

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with friendship.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Six of us walked the beautiful flower-bordered labyrinth on the campus of the University Of Maine, in Machias this morning. These women in the photograph, captured passing on different labyrinth circuits, have been in my life forty years and enriched it more than is ever possible to explain. The woman on the left is in the fight of her life, battling returning ovarian cancer. We've just spent some wonderful days together in my old family summer house in Maine and look forward eagerly to many more years together, laughing, crying and just plain living.