Every time I pour home made stock out of a cooking pot and into a container I think of my friend Leah and the time she carefully, accidentally strained the stock bones out and poured the whole pot down the sink.
Every time I make two cups of tea together, I think of the time I was on a long phonecall with my friend Vanessa when I was living in Brisbane and she was in Sydney. She was making tea. She accidentally made me one too, in her kitchen in Sydney. It was a long three years, a thousand kilometres apart.
Every time I cut chives from the garden I think about the dinner my friend Sal made once, with fresh chives from her garden stirred through, and her fella had a puzzled look and wondered where the chives came from exactly because that corner you were headed to with the scissors only has grass in it you know, right?
Every time I hear an inspirational story I think of my sister Suzie, The Great Encourager, and how like a one-woman pep club she gave me a bag of wrapped gifts with a number on each of them when Henry was first born, and would then randomly ring for the next month and give me a number and I had to open that one. One day it was chocolate. The next time a magazine. There was hand cream. Wine. Coffee. Tissues. It was perfect.
Every time I eat chocolate cake I think of my friend Anita, the healthiest person on the planet, who treats sultanas as treats and who all those years ago taught me the difference between organic and preservative-free. Who I almost went into business with making organic snacks for kids except it was just the wrong time of our lives and how nobody makes a better chocolate cake than she does. Nobody.
Every time I host a party I think of my friend Alex who I shared a house with for a while, who just knew how to host parties. The best ones. The most fun New Years Eve ones. The ones that included skinny dipping in public baths after midnight and the most delicious dacquaris and uncomplicated hilarious interesting people. She finds them all.
Every time I buy a mango I think of my friend Rachel, who is also my very adored sister in law, who loves mangos in an unholy way. I also think of Rach every time I see a custard cream biscuit, or a McVities digestive, or a custard tart at yum cha, or a cinnamon scroll, or peanut M&Ms (our movie food of choice), or bagels or pastrami-on-rye or noodles or mayonnaise or chorizo or cheese & bacon balls.
Every time I see daffodils I think of my friend Sue and being fifteen with lace up Doc Martins and Bowral in wintertime and talking without stopping. I think of uni houses and cheese on toast and the utter joy of interesting conversation.
Every time something good happens I want to tell my sister Naomi, whom I've lived in many different houses with and told all the good things to forever, and who now lives in Hong Kong and who is coming to stay with her posse of ridiculously excellent small girls and very very funny husband for two weeks, in two weeks.
And that makes the world excellent.
Friends with history are a gift. And if we all get alzheimer's and lose our short term memories it'll be those friends we remember and who amuse us, every time.
Cheers to that with two cups of tea.
xxx