Friends

What is a friend? Are our true friends more important to us than even members of our family? A popular, and oft-repeated Facebook post claims: “Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything for you, and love you no matter what.”

In the words of Alain de Botton, a friend is someone “kind enough to consider more of us normal than most people do.” And when we think about the importance of friends, one can’t help but think Nietzsche was right to find Epicurus’s ideas on friendship appealing: “Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.”

This past week I have managed to catch up with two wonderful friends. The next week will, I hope, see me have the opportunity to spend time with others. I am blessed with a collection of special people – not a large collection to be sure, but a collection nonetheless – of people who I consider to be true friends.

Then there are the new friends. The people we meet by chance who touch our lives and who, for whatever reason, reach us in a way that makes us want to open ourselves to them and to meet up with them again and again. The people we want to build a friendship with because of that spark they have that lights our hearts and our minds (and if we’re very lucky, our bodiesJ).

They may, over time, become family. Or we may realise that we were mistaken. Or they may not like us quite the same way we like them.

I guess what counts for me is that amongst all the people that I have met, there are a few people I find it easy to support and love who support and love me back.

Home

After spending a too short two weeks in Australia I find myself thinking about what home means - and how many homes can a person have?

I live in Dubai and have lived there for over ten years. I have good friends, friends I want to see regularly and often, in Dubai, the UK, Switzerland, Canada, Macedonia, Poland ... These are all people I have met since I moved to Dubai - they are the friends of my midlife and I love them dearly.

That said, I have friends in Australia who I have known for way longer and who I wish I could see more often. Two or three weeks a year visiting the country of my birth doesn't allow me to spend the time with them that I would wish to spend.

Then of course there is family. Love them or hate them, we can't live without them. They made us who we are. They shaped our lives, supporting us in times of trouble and grief, cheering us in times of triumph, and they are just there during the plodding days of ordinary life. And that's the important thing. They are there. Always. No matter what family ties tie. I have found that even remote cousins can sometimes seem at least as close as good friends because of our shared background; the family ties we have in common making up for any lack of shared experience.

So when it comes to ideas of home, and where I will spend the rest of my life, I confess I am torn. Sure I live in Dubai, but that's more because it's convenient than through any sense of belonging there. And Australia as the country of my birth, the home of my family, the place with which I am most familiar, well, it's home.

At this stage I find it impossible to say where I will end up - but I have a strong feeling that no matter where I keep my belongings, airport lounges will remain familiar places.