the summer of friendship

This is the summer, it seems, of friendship. Of deeply meaningful lunches with friends whose stories have evolved, so magnificently, through the years. Of an afternoon spent in the glorious Brooklyn home of a very dearest friend. Of long conversations with neighbors—conversations that began a long time ago and that pick up right where they ended, as if many seasons and much weather had not intervened. How have you been? How do your seeds grow? How is your daughter, your husband, your mom? Of reunions with high school friends. Of saving grace phone calls and long walks. Of conversations with poets. Of former students who write or who appear in bookstores; they are growing up, they are growing up so beautifully. Of new friends, too, who kiss me on the cheek as if I have known them forever, or present me with a beaded lei and an ALOHA. Of emails that make me laugh out loud or astonish me or leave me with that happy something that erupts, naturally, when another's dream has been fulfilled.

They have waited, it has happened, it is good—and I am soaring with them. I am glad to be their friend.

The summer of friendship.

I've been thinking about that. Grateful for that. And, today (and for a long time, for our friendship is a long one, too) I am also grateful to a certain Nathaniel Popkin, who writes more beautifully about this city and about books than anyone I know. The man knows things, and he is a poet. Last evening, driving home from a perfect New York City day, I found these Hidden City words that had been Tweeted out to the world, and to me. I don't know what to do about words like these but to say, again, thank you. Thank you, Nathaniel, for your generosity.