For years, I had neither the time nor the inclination to plan my day (any day) around lunching with other ladies. Mainly, I had no time. Nor did my friends. We had, unwittingly sped straight from our starry-eyed, uncomplicated young lives to raising families; starting second or third careers; caring for aging parents; volunteering to do anything even remotely associated with garnering stars for our heavenly crowns. We, who as twenty-somethings enjoyed mornings of golf followed by white wine luncheons eventually found ourselves over-committed, over-worked and underpaid, slowly gaining weight while too frazzled by life to meet over salads at an appointed time and place. Taking an hour out of my day to socialize over lunch wasn't an option I considered sane.
 
Back then, I was flying all over the country, dining in five star restaurants—or, more often, scarfing down peanut butter crackers chased with lukewarm coffee and hoping that wasn't my meal for the day.  A good, if rare day during those years involved being home at noon to open a can of soup then eat it on the sunporch with cats underfoot rubbing against my legs. Slowing down to a simpler life was inevitable, but old habits are hard broken. It's taken me half a decade to realize as long as I'm taking in the people and the places around me as I draw each breath, I'm hardly squandering my time.

My friend Roxa called (seems like it was about this time a year ago) one day to ask if I'd accompany her to lunch with one of her old girlfriends the next day. At her ranch "down the road". I'm always honored to be included in get-togethers among old friends willing to pull another chair up to the table. I'd met this friend, liked and admired her.
I accepted before Roxa listed her caveats: be ready to leave at 7 am (for lunch!? I'm normally still too sleepy to sip coffee at 7 am!); wear sturdy hiking shoes; bring a couple of warm jackets; I'd need a flashlight and at least a gallon of water. Oh, and a camera. And some food, too. In case. Just cheese and crackers, maybe a peanut butter sandwich. Nuts. Fruit. In case.

I mentally added a gun. And extra ammo. In case. My nimble mind had already leapt to the realization that if we needed survival gear, we wouldn't have cell phone service the whole way.

We left at 7. I took a thermos of coffee along. And toilet paper. In case.

Roxa explained that she didn't anticipate problems, but....

We headed south. We stopped, often, to take pictures. Roxa does a line of notecards with Big Bend cactus, flowers, landscapes which she markets through our online store at Old Spanish Trail Studio. I keep my Canon Digital Elph and my Canon SLR close and ready to capture the landscape of my next painting, and for photo references of specific plants, skies, rocks.  We passed a lot of plants, skies, rocks. A lot. By 10:30, we'd stopped more times than a Greyhound bus taking the scenic route across the nation.
We hit the blooming ocotillo flats. I mean that literally. If you've ever come upon a sweep of tall, spindly ocotillo sprouting red blossoms ten feet above the white alkali desert, you'll understand what I'm saying. Every blessed ocotillo demanded its own photo from each of the three cameras on board. Past the ocotillo came the orangy-green creosote flats spotted with bravely blooming cactus and Indian paintbrush.
 
We arrived, late for lunch.

A leisurely tour of the ranch house and its surroundings, a luncheon of shrimp salad and homemade rolls, lingering long after over iced tea and conversation consumed a couple of enjoyable hours. Then, it was time to head back.

By now, it was mid-afternoon. We were tired, and there wasn't as much chatter in the truck, but the silence was companionable and introspective at the same time. Roxa pointed out the dry riverbed as we crossed it. That unassuming draw and its companion down the way, filled with runoff from a rain, would've stranded us until the water subsided. Maybe a day. Maybe less. It didn't rain. We didn't have a flat. Lunch was satisfying and the tea, cool. We didn't have to dip into our rations. We passed only one other vehicle the whole time we were off the main road and only a couple of trucks while on the main road. Those we passed, we knew. It wasn't necessary to shoot anybody. I didn't have to hike, but the shoes came in handy as I scrambled up and down rocks taking pictures. Roxa dropped me off at home at suppertime. It was a hard day, but a hard day to end, too.

The friendships I sustained during those busy years of work were and are valuable ones, no less so than the new ones I'm making during these days I call "my own". The difference is in the scenery, and in the silence, and in the sense of place that overrides the urgencies of time. Lunching at the newest, trendiest restaurant dictates conversation. Busy-ness. Hurry. Lunching at a ranch three hours from anywhere, being prepared to survive in transit, devoting a whole day to the adventure is different. You must like not only the conversation of friends—you must like yourself enough to appreciate the silence of an unhurried walk through a cresote forest.


SILENT WALK THRU A CREOSOTE FOREST       14" x 18" pastel by Lindy C Severns
about $1800, once framed    available at Kiowa Gallery, Alpine TX April 2008