Warm Blanket Folks

I spent forty minutes on the phone with a fella today. This is noteworthy because I detest the phone as much as my one-year-old daughter detests order.

Do you have those folks in your life who bring a warm, cozy feeling over you? Not in a romantic way, but rather simply in a sense that they somehow make you feel safer, smarter and better about yourself all at the same time?

Am I making any sense?

Just talking with them, or even simply getting an email from one of these people makes your day better, makes you better and makes you want to pay it forward – you know?

That was Patrick today. He lives in Portland, and I looked forward to the call, and I was sorry when it was over. A long phone call for me is about four minutes before I start to twitch a little.

In ten times that, we talked back and forth, but I mostly listened. He wasn’t trying to reassure me about anything. That wasn’t the purpose of the call. I’m not certain he has any idea he has/had the effect on me during and after the conversation.

These people are more valuable than gold.

They need not be best friends, and the conversations may not happen more than once a month or twenty years.

It’s serendipitous because two more of them commented on the blog recently. I haven’t seen one in twenty years and I haven’t seen the other in probably two, yet I have a distinct recollection of feeling better after being in their presence.

What is it? A radiance? Grace? A groundedness? What makes people transmit these warm glows like current through a line?

I don’t know – more questions than answers, but it’s just what ran through my brain as I walked on the treadmill tonight.

Look, you’ve probably got sixty distractions at your fingertips right now.

Why not push them aside, unplug, and reach out to one of those people in your life this weekend?

Not to go all Scrooged on you, but why not? Or go ahead and plug back in as long as it’s simply to shoot an email to one of these warm blanket folks from your twenty-years-ago life. Find out what’s new. Say ‘hello in there.’

You can go back to Angry Birds, or wrapping presents or simply the business of busy on Monday, but you might be changed by the better when you do.

In fact, kinda like buying a lottery ticket for the fun of taking a few minutes to imagine what you might do, why not take a few minutes RIGHT NOW to list our three our four of the warm blanket folks you’ve known in your life.

I’ll wait … … …

1.

2.

3.

4.

Awesome. Why not spend the rest of the day or evening thinking about time spent with them, or better yet, pick one and reach out. Do it. Right now.

John Lennon passed thirty years ago this week – tell me his friends and family wouldn’t trade anything for the chance at one more call, email, chat or hug with him.

Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans? Darn right.

Unplug for a while this weekend. Reach out. It’s less sooty than building a fire and more healthy than whiskey. It’ll warm your soul as winter begins to winter and nights dark earlier.

Thanks, Patrick, for the call today, and thanks to the two serendipitous commentors, too. It’s been nice thinking about you and smiling.

Wishing you a warm weekend,

t