As I’ve chosen to reduce socializing in favor of more writing time, I’ve chosen to keep up or reconnect with a very few friends and realize an essential characteristic of friendship: time doesn’t matter. However long the moments, weeks, or years between contacts, real friendship knows no steel-banded boundaries of time, distance, erratic mobile phone connections, or sporadic emails.

I recall a friend of twenty years ago who lived nearby and still cherish our many calls and visits. When we both moved, our interests diverged, and contact ended.