Aspen and I have been going through a lot of changes lately, what with being parents and all. One big change has been with respect to our friends.

We’ve been parents for almost 11 years. Now that we finally have time to be more social, we’ve come to see that we have very few friends left.

We have been so busy raising our three boys that we haven’t really noticed our loss until recently. However, this past summer, we had more time to reach outside our family, and we were surprised to find how few friends were left out there.
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We started thinking about what kind of friends we wanted, now that we had felt the need again, now that we had more time for a social life.

We thought we had a new friend, a body worker, but he turned out to be a “call me for an appointment” type friend. We don’t want friends who are still hooked into the straight world like that. We decided then that what we did want were friends who have freed themselves, not just from the 9 to 5 and trying to get ahead system, but from that entire way of relating to the world.

Aspen and I are edgewalkers, and we really like our few friends who are also living on the edge, citizens of Edge City as we are. We want to find more friends who are edgewalkers.

I have also found that friends who use the various medicines for spiritual growth fit us well. I have always found that I have a deep and permanent connection with folks I have tripped with, And I have noticed too that when I sit down with a friend and we smoke a bowl, we both find ourselves becoming more open and friendly – certainly more real.

Aspen and I especially like friends with kids. It’s difficult for most folks to relate to Aspen and me if they don’t be parents themselves. It’s also difficult for most of them to relate to our kids when they don’t have any themselves. There are exceptions; our friend John Bob has always been awesome and understanding with our kids.

Mostly Aspen and I want to have friends we could live with, raising our kids together with. You know, folks we can get along with. We’re not in a hurry to live with others but it is on our minds.

And you know what? Ever since we began thinking about friends, new friends who would fit our new life as parents, we’ve been meeting them.