deep in conversation...

.

with my dear friend mel.

i am so LUCKY to be surrounded with good people.

Mel is one of them. She told me today, while eating gelati in the weak winter rays, that she didn't know her purpose in life, apart to just enjoy it.
And it made me giggle... because Mel's purpose is fulfilled every day.
This woman ~ at once funny, deeply compassionate, smart, serious, warm, and knowledgeable about everything under the sun ~ has been such a gift in my life. She's the one I ask those tough questions about. She's the one who walked the whole city with me when I was lost and stuck. She offers wise and good counsel. It usually takes me a few months at least to come around to the same realisation that she offered in the first place. But she doesn't stick it in my face. She tells me the truth, and then let's me find it for myself.
Today I told her that I didn't think expending my life energy into the public service in order to one day bring about change was necessarily the right way to go about it. And that maybe, I could bring change to the world on my own, using my own gifts.
And she laughed. "You dag! I told you that when I first met you two years ago!"



Therein lies Mel's greatest gift to the world. She makes me believe in myself.
And I know there are countless others out there that she has touched in this way.
Where there is Mel, there are people. There are lunch dates aplenty. There is inspiration to be had. Wisdom, experience and laughter.
And of course, the amazing photos of that time she got hitched to her hubby in Las Vegas...

{mel is full of surprises}