The Gift of Friendship

Linda, Teri, Gail, Pauline and Susan wearing the Birthday Hats

Tonight my Women’s Group celebrated Linda’s 60th birthday at the Tea Room in the Panama Hotel in the International District (a lovely little spot with a sad and interesting history). Linda is one of the most amazing hostesses I know. She is generous, thoughtful, giving and, when I am with her, I feel a warm glow of her presence as she engages with me and those others around her. In keeping with her generous spirit she picked up the tab for this lovely tea. I recall a conversation with her a number of weeks back where she spoke about how much she enjoys organizing a get together for her birthday where her friends are the welcome guests and she receives the gift of their presence.

Our Women’s Group has been meeting for several years now and they have been a constant source of support, encouragement and inspiration. Just recently, Gail and Pauline have been unable to attend our regular meetings due to Life commitments and Teri has recently returned from more than a month of travel in Hong Kong and India. Linda and I still enjoyed our meetings of two. Tonight, we were all together again for the first time in a couple of months and it was lovely. Linda, Teri and I will now resume our bi-weekly meetings and we will have another full group get together in December. I feel very blessed to have a community of smart, capable, and loving women who consistently support one another with our friendship as we navigate this experience called Life.

I decided to include a photo of our group celebrating my birthday with our ritual birthday hats last year. I do not have a photo of us wearing the hats for Linda’s little celebration because she evoked the privilege of the “birthdayee” and decided against wearing them at the Tea Room. As this ritual of the hats was Linda marvelous idea I figured we should evoke it in some manner. Voilà le photo!

Photograph Credit: Teri Akin, 2006 (http://www.akinphotography.com/)