Devorah in her role as carpenter

This is a SERIOUS back-blip, a photo made on the day before my birthday in 2010. I had been living in my little one-room apartment for two years, after arriving in Portland with nothing but what would fit into my car.  I came to Portland because Devorah discovered how subsidized housing works and then found the very building where I now live and recommended it to me. I wouldn't be here without Devorah, and everything I now know as my life would not be, without her. Seth and his partner came here after visiting me at Christmas in 2009. Bella was born in 2011. I met Sue in 2011. I joined the Occupy movement in 2011. 

I posted this photograph before, back when I made it, but it is one of many blips I deleted, back in the years when I was curating my blips. I can't remember what my criteria were, in those days, for keeping or not keeping. I think it was photographic excellence or some such delusion. 

I'm re-posting it now as a testament to the importance of friendship, because tomorrow I'm heading for Oakland, California for a few days. Oakland is where Devorah now lives. I'm hoping Sue will go with me, though some unexpected events in her family may keep her in Portland. Either way, I'm going, because when you have a good friend, a friend who has aged with you and listened to your angst for years, a friend who laughs with you at your own absurdity, a friend who shares her doubts and hopes with you, a friend whose children and grandchildren you care about as if they were your own, a friend who grows her wisdom as you watch, you want to hang onto that friend. And even though you can call her on the phone, or text, or send her a Facebook message or an email, sometimes you just have to see her eyes in person and touch her hand and give her a hug.

Devorah was a "red diaper baby" in the Bronx, the child of passionate working-class political activists. She has a PhD in science (I have forgotten which field, which tells you something about me), a PhD in psychology, and a Doctor of Divinity degree. She teaches at Starr King School for the Ministry, an American Unitarian Universalist and multireligious seminary in Berkeley, California. She lives with a marvelous woman named Sofia, who is also a UU minister and professor, and whose partner is a marvelous woman named Sam, and the three of them are putting me/us up for four nights. 

Devorah raised three children on a farm in upstate New York, and she can do just about anything, including carpentry. Her friendship is a large part of what has made me who I am and my life what it is, and I am grateful. So rather than post a photo of my suitcase, I'll skip posting a picture for today (which, for the record, is May 24, 2016) and post this one.