What is more dear and precious than friendship?

I had such a wonderful time yesterday afternoon.  I met with a dear friend whom I have known 6-7 years, I guess, for lunch.  We sat outside, taking in the sun, a bit of a breeze, good food and lively conversation.  We shared deeply and laughed a lot!  What a joy it is to have a friend - to be a friend! 
Also, I just ran across this quote I made note of several months go:  "Take responsibility for the time you use and the space you occupy".  My note says "The Age of the Unthinkable" and the name of the person I scribbled is undecipherable.  I wish I had taken more pains to write it more clearly. 
"Take responsibility for the time you use and the space you occupy."
That is an amazing sentence, in my mind.  And in my mind, it is a mindful way to live a life.  For me, to take responsibility for the time I use means to think about, to weigh, and to feel my way through each day as though there are consequences for my actions, as indeed there are.  How I spend my day matters - not in the sense of "Look at me!  See what I am doing!" as much as it is reveals me, my self, my being, and how I see myself in connection, interdependence with others, that counts. 
Take responsibility for the space I occupy?  What is the energy I bring with me into any space?  What are the feelings that emanate from my being in any one place at any one time?  This morning, as usual, I did my exercise routine, meeting several women friends and visiting with a woman I had not met before.  We chatted mostly about baseball and the team we support (or not, as the case may be - she being a Yankee fan and I am NOT!) and so on.  She also mentioned she had a migraine headache and, although I have never had one, I could not for a minute imagine pulling, pushing, lifting, the machines around like we do with my head throbbing as I imagined hers doing.  So, did I take responsibility for the space I was occupying at that moment?  Did I remember to offer a blessing and a prayer to her from my heart to her head?  To be absolutely honest, I cannot exactly remember that I did - and I certainly hope so.  That would be, for me, a definition of taking responsibility for the space I occupy.
From my workout, I drove to a retail center to purchase birthday cards.  There are loads of November birthdays coming up for the Marshall family.  Would you believe, out of the eleven grandchildren I have been blessed to love, five of them are born from November 4th to November 12th!  And two of my four children have birthdays later in November, and the brother who was a surrogate father to me, Baxter, was born on the 28th.  So many celebrations - so much love to share! 
Then I went to another store to purchase a pair of black pants.  I had received one of those $10 off coupons for shopping between 10/27-10/31.  As I cut the coupon out, I had this feeling that there was some fine print I needed to read.  As small as the "fine print" was, I couldn't exactly make it out.  After I had made my selection, the cashier said "This doesn't apply".  No surprise!  And, as it turned out, the woman next to me, with whom I had carried on a conversation while waiting in line, could use the coupon and so I said "Sure!"
I do hope that I can honestly say that today, I took responsibility for the time I used and the space I occupied.
Until tomorrow - dear reader -
Thanks for it all!