But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self nor of the other, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone. —- David Whyte
Hope you are enjoying your break and having some time off.
There’s something about watching someone work at their life with such care. Simone Weil in “First and Last Notebook” once said “attention is the purest form of generosity”. I think about that when I see your posts pop up, even if they’re fewer these days.
You’ve built something real out there in San Francisco. Not the big, showy kind of real. The quiet kind. The kind that comes from showing up to the same place, same time, week after week. Making those cups and bowls. Running those streets before dawn. It reminds me of that Carver story, “Cathedral,” where the real connection happens not in some big moment, but in two people drawing together in the dark.
About family - I know something about that kind of hurt. We have a saying in Vietnamese: “một giọt máu đào hơn ao nước lã.” - One drop of blood is worth more than a pond of water. But sometimes that blood runs hot and cold, doesn’t it? Sometimes the water’s clearer.
Alain de Botton often argues that happiness is neither a grand finale nor a static possession but a state of continual becoming—small alignments of our actions, our values, and our relationships over time. Every morning run, every strummed chord, and every co-writing session is a quietly defiant act that says: I choose to show up for myself. As a distant friend, I’m glad to see you’ve found a measure of peace in San Francisco. The happiness you describe doesn’t come from chasing it—it just grows in the life you’ve built.
May the new year bring you more of that quiet contentment. Looking forward to all the things you are up to in 2025.