365 Inspirations—Six: Engaging Conversations with Wonderful Friends

"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."—Charles Dickens

 In a world of online communication, it is so nice to actually have an engaging face-to-face conversation with good friends. I think as a society we are moving toward this more. I can only hope this is the case.

I love all the friends I have met on the net and am so grateful for the fact that this worldwide network has made it possible for us to meet, even though you are in __________ (India, China, Australia, Korea, England...where are you from? Leave me a comment) and I'm in Seattle. I consider this blog to be one of my communities and it would be so thrilling to meet you in person someday. I had the great pleasure of meeting many bloggers/friends while on book tour. There's nothing that compares to finally meeting someone in person after years of communicating online. It's like meeting a long lost friend, yet you've never actually met in person.

On December 31, 2012, just before the ball dropped, the fireworks went off, people clinked glasses, locked arms or kissed, I was on the sofa next to my husband staring into the fire in the fireplace drinking apple cider and completely content. I checked Facebook and realized that people all over the world were wishing each other a Happy New Year 2013!

At 11:56pm, a friend sent me a message. She said, "Happy almost New year! Are you and Yoon available this upcoming Friday for dinner? I will be in town and it would be so fun to see you both!" This is a friend I knew from high school, but never really talked to in high school. She somehow discovered my blog and read my book and since then we have been in contact with each other.

She came over at around 6:30pm and we had a cup of tea and chatted a bit on the sofa and then we went to the yoga studio to pick up Yoon at Yoon's Yoga Bliss. Yoon showed her around the studio and  then we all carpooled over to a Thai Restaurant up the street. After a tasty meal, we went back to our house, made a fire and had delicious little cakes and tarts with herbal tea.

But it wasn't so much what we did that left an impression on me. It was the time we spent together and the conversations we had. In our fast pace world, this is so rare. There's no time to meet others. There's no time to linger with friends.

We are all in a hurry to do and get to the next thing! Why are we running so fast?

I hope this year I spend more time meeting and lingering with friends, walking, writing letters (real, handwritten letters), witnessing my surroundings and slowing down. Even though I'll be writing this blog for 365 days this year, I hope that my feet can still feel the earth and my ears can still hear the sound of a friend's voice and I can really listen.

Engaging conversations with friends is so important to me because inspiration feeds off of inspiration. We all bring something to the table and when we meet in person it makes it that much stronger!

(Above is a picture of me and two high school friends at one of my book readings last spring. I hadn't seen them since high school and it was so nice to reconnect face-to-face!)