Only occasionally and at different times

My mother gave all of her children a puzzle two years ago called One Tough Puzzle. It's tough all right. It only has 9 squares with two possible interlocking pieces on two of the sides of each square that fit only one adjacent piece corectly. The toughness comes because it has over 300,000 combinations. I have probably spent about 3 hours trying to get one of my combinations to make the pieces all fit. No luck yet.




I suppose the same fascination with trying to figure out the puzzle parts with so many combinations is the one I have for language and the way it is generated in the first place and then used by people in the second place. It fascinates me. My best friend's wife has a different theory on my fascination with language, but that's material for a different blog. I know how much of language is structured, but I haven't been able to fit all the pieces together for the perfect theory. No luck yet.

Although I have not figured out the combination of all of life yet (no luck there either), I have on occasion been able to find the combinations for some beautiful friendships and mentors that have helped along the journey through life. My Greek professor in college was a person of unsurpassable patience with a passion for passing on the secrets of an ancient tongue. I got what he was about. He passed that on to me. I had two college roommates with whom I still keep in contact that for some reason hit on all cylinders with me then and now. I have a friend in a town nearby who used to live where I do. We are fast friends and take annual trips together, the two of us. We "get each other." I also have family. We grew up together. We share DNA. We know each other, resemble each other (and like each for that matter). And recenly I made a tremendous friend who epitomizes grace. I so very much enjoyed his way of working with people and making them know that they were important. He is in ill health now with not much longer to live. But we hit it off from the very beginning.

Philosophers and literary writers alike have written about friendships from time immemorial. It's all about the times when that one in 300,000 chance comes together that makes for a single strand made of two cords. Even though the phenomenon is as old as humans are, it's still a very beautiful thing to see and experience.

My Greek professor died many years ago. I still share his mission, his passion. My roommates and I talk on occasion by phone and visit about every third year. We still enjoy every second of each other's available time for those visits. My close friend and I look forward to our annual trips of sharing again in each other's life. My family and I get together 3 times a year, but it is so easy to pick up where we left off. And my recent friend is not healthy enough to speak for very long at a time by phone, but in a few words we share our bond.

There is a particular beauty in coming across the one in a 300,000 chance, no matter when that happens on our journeys.