To establish ties

The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, is perhaps my very, very favorite book (after the Bible) in the world.

  Have you read it? 

If you've only read it once, you've probably decided it was the product of a delusional Frenchman, who drew amusing pictures. (Which, as I write that, probably explains why I'm drawn to it!)

I believe it's not a story to be read once and walked away from. It's much too complex.  And it's not a story that makes any sense, whatsoever, so for those who are looking for plot, conflict and tidy resolutions, it is an incredibly frustrating book. But for those of us who have never really finished growing up, it's a comforting book. 

I drove home from Billings on the interstate, yesterday and had two hours of uninterrupted time to think.  (This is dangerous, let me warn you....I think better out loud, bouncing things off other people.  Thinking to myself tends to muddle and muddy and tangle every little string of ponder, until my thoughts looks like a wad of junk that a 4 year old packed around in her pocket. Not pretty.  When I think aloud, to a friend, the strings become bright and even though they meander, there's form; one could follow them back if needed.)

Anyway, I was thinking about friendships and how they are such essential, dear gifts, and how we sometimes squander them, like Kleenex from a new box.  As though there will always be another one, fresh and clean, when one of the first gets raggedy and messy.  And it reminded me of The Little Prince.

This is going to be a two (or maybe three) part post.  It takes awhile to draw you to where I am...
Please be patient with me, and enjoy the beauty of De Saint-Exupery's writing.

From The Little Prince:

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

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"...I am looking for friends. What does that mean - tame?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

"To establish ties?"

"Just that," said the fox.  "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys.  And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me.  To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.  But if you tame me, then we shall need each other.  To me, you will be unique in all the world.  To you, I shall be unique in all the world...."

...........................................................................

"My life is very monotonous," he (the fox) said.  "I hunt chickens; men hunt me.  All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike.  And, in consequence, I am a little bored.  But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life.  I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others.  Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground.  Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.  And then look: you see the grain fields down yonder?  I do not eat bread.  Wheat is of no use to me.  The wheat fields have nothing to say to me.  And that is sad.  But you have hair that is the color of gold.  Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me!  The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you.  And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please-  tame me!" he said.