Simone and I are spending the weekend at Keystone Resort, in the mountains outside Denver. We’re here for a three-day conference about Jewish culture, learning, and practice. Roughly 200 people (families, couples, singles) have gathered in this beautiful location to build an ad-hoc community, and the result is truly amazing.
I’ve decided to take a break—skip the second morning session—to sit out by the lake and write. Simone’s with a bunch of great kids; learning, laughing, singing. So I’m taking a deep breath, and taking in my surroundings. We’re situated in a shallow valley close to 10k feet above sea level, the mountaintops on all sides of us still covered with a light crust of shiny white snow, the pines and spruces deep green. Geese in the lake are flapping around and calling out to each other, their honking communication echoing across the village of condominiums and gift shops.
We don’t know everyone here, but some of our favorite people have come up for the experience, and watching Simone work the big dining room—cultivating hugs and conversations with various grownups—made me realize just how much of a network of caring, loving friends we’ve created for ourselves. In fact, it feels like we’re with family here.
We’re very close with our nuclear family—my sisters, parents, nephews, aunts and uncles and cousins are all close-knit, occasionally to the point of suffocation. We are perpetually in contact and always concerned for each other’s happiness. But we’re also spread wide across the country and beyond. When I was married, we had family friends we were incredibly close to, but that relationship faded post-divorce, as lifestyles and priorities changed (i.e. I was a jerk).
My closest friends are the ones I’ve made in the last five years. And those connections feel deep—based on shared experiences (cultural, situational, soused) and similar perspectives about the world. But intrinsic in these relationships is my friends’ love for Simone—they dote on her, they adore her, and they are involved in her lifecycle experiences in much the same way her grandparents and aunts and uncles are.
My friends also understand the limitations of my accessibility, and they support, in many many ways, my commitment to Simone’s wellbeing. They also let me know when I’m being an idiot, which is something only the most important people in one’s life will do. In my latest batch of misadventures, my network of support helped me cope with the consequences without coddling me, letting me know they were there for me, even if they didn’t always agree with my actions. Just like a “real” family.
In my prayers and moments of counting my blessings, I’ve always thought how happy and grateful I am to have Simone, and my family, and my friends. What I realize now is that the boundary between family and friends has become fuzzy. For instance, my emergency contact is my BFF—she’s the first person I’d call if I needed immediate assistance (whether it was to take me to the emergency room or to tell me if a new shirt fit right). But there’s a dozen other people in my circle I could call, too, during a time of crisis, and any one of them would drop everything to help. It’s very different from just a few years ago.
And, here, in the mountains, with so many people we love sharing meals and learning and song with us, I feel humbled by what we’ve been given. I miss the people who should be here, because it feels like a family reunion with some key members absent (and, yes, that includes the Peach). But even that sense—that we’re missing other “family” members—is a very special kind of longing. It’s a warm and sweet kind of pain to feel.
Time to go pick up Simone and meet everyone in the dining room for lunch.
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