On Friendship and God’s Bounty
It’s been five years since we moved three thousand miles from the western suburbs of Philadelphia to San Francisco. My husband’s company needed him to help launch a new product: We’d be transferred to California for two years, and then we’d be back. Just a little adventure, they said.
Five years later, our six-year-old goes to a San Francisco public city school and roots for the Giants. When his team plays the Phillies out here in SF, he and his dad attend the baseball game wearing rival colors. Our three-year-old has only ever known city dwelling by the sea. He wants to be a surfer.
Last month, my husband, Chris, and I spent Christmas in our old stomping grounds, visiting family, tying up the final details of our (finally) sold house, and seeing friends like Jeff and Christina.
Christina and Jeff became our closest friends nine years ago, right after our move to the Philly area. While I embrace that my greatest gift is my ability to feel all the extreme feelings (most of the time, I’m either wildly laughing or crying, or writing about one or the other), Christina is straight faced and dead pans with the best of them. While I’ve been in our current home for one entire year and still haven’t covered my living room windows or hung a frame in my bedroom, Christina’s eye and passion for good design is unrivaled. She designs homes for a living and makes custom window treatments that will make your mouth water. Also, she makes me laugh more than anyone I know.
Jeff and Chris have a perfectly understood friendship. Both are culinary mavens. Both are passionate about good food and wine and coffee and words. Both are willing to take an epicurean interest to its most extreme level. Here’s where they click best though. My husband is the visionary: he sees what a meal or drink or experience could be. Jeff carries it to its completion.
Christina can set a table that will make Pinterest weep. Jeff and Chris can create a meal that causes angels to descend and ascend upon on table. And me? I am a lover of eating and feeling and good conversation. My job is to sigh when I take a bite, say thank you repeatedly, and make sure the conversation gets deep, fast.