Winter writings: Day 44

I love the beginning minutes of a class, when teacher and students warily size each other up and down. Cautiously exchanging names, reluctant in conversation, we begin to share our stories of how we came to this moment in time. We speak as if we are serving up small bits of our soul in a crystal dish, as brittle as ice, as fragile as heirloom china.

As the day moves forward, we begin to relax and more pieces of life break loose, peeling the brick and mortar of our tortoise shells away, as we let silly laughter and shared experience warm our hearts. We giggle at bad jokes, smile at secret triumphs and shake our heads in shared dismay, with exclamations of "can you imagine" and "you don't say." And we begin to draw closer as our lives intertwine in this shared experience.

And when it's time to go, we are forever sisters; connected at the hip of our souls. We exchange names and promises to get together again. And we each leave knowing that having shared this day, we will no longer walk alone in this world.