“Walk to the well. 
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
circling what they love.
Whatever circles comes from the center.”
                -Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi p. 279

                This evening I had the wonderful chance to walk with my friend Roger. That’s part of how we became friends: long rambling walks, through the woods of Amherst, MA, to the ponds where little lives glowed at the kiss where earth met water, to the hill where stars scattered, and back beneath the trees, limbs creaking. Shadows alive. We became friends on long walks and in conversations that felt like long walks, circling through hopes and dreams, ideas and curiosities, and back to shared silence. Pauses that felt like long drinks of cool water. Circling back to each other. 
                Today we walked with each other through a phone call. Less good? Perhaps. I certainly wish we could walk together in person more often. Like so many of my friends, we’ve moved away from each other with jobs and degrees and all the steps that felt necessary. But tonight, sharing voices, we felt close again. And instead of saying we moved away from each other, I thought, we’re walking to the well. Circling what we love. I think I love walking because of its stillness and its movement. Running, or driving, or riding a bike—I feel the rush, the excitement. And stretched out on the grass I feel at ease. Although, in another way, that’s not true at all: in the middle of running I sometimes find a moment where all there is is breath, stillness, and in lying on the grass I sometimes feel roots digging, sun pouring down, blood circling. 
                Walking with a friend has a way of bringing me back to the kind of center that can stretch all the miles from here to there, that can live inside a phone call. I’m so grateful, and so glad. Walking to the well, and sometimes walking is its own drink of cool water.