“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Most of us would agree with Alfred Lord Tennyson. Love is a precious, valuable commodity in a world filled with fear and loathing. Who would deny themselves love just to avoid loss?

Certainly Tsukuru Tazaki would agree. He’s the protagonist of the latest Haruki Murakami novel, Murakami being the Japanese writer with a cult-like following. Tsukuru is portayed as an ordinary man whose most meaningful experience was his relationship with four friends in high school. This little group shared a close bond and did everything together. Unfortunately, the friends rejected Tsukuru during his second year of university and he never found out why. He was so devasted by the loss of his friends that he almost commited suicide. Even 16 years later, when the novel takes place, Tsukuru feels loss. Only through the suggestion of his girlfriend does Tsukuru finally decide to contact his old friends and heal his wounds. What he finds surprises and disappoints him. Clearly though, Tsukuru was profoundly shaped by the love of these friends. He knows what it means to be loved and continues to search for this intensity of relationship again and again. And if he could go back in time he probably would have chosen the friendships despite the pain they caused.

When I entered high school I had a close friend too. Kim and I had been friends since fifth grade and we spent most weekends at one another’s houses. We swam in her pool, watched TV, shopped and attended birthday parties together. Then one day, the first week of high school, Kim dropped me. We were boarding the bus together to go to school and she decided to sit with another girl, Niki. Niki was extremely popular, beautiful and talented. From that day forward Kim cultivated her friendship with Niki and not with me. I felt loss and spent most of my freshman year alone. However, even in my loneliness I knew that if I could go back and change things, I wouldn’t. I would still have chosen my friendship with Kim. I had enjoyed too many things with her and I had learned what a good friendship was like.

So many times we must experience the absence of something to appreciate its existence. The emptiness can be a teacher. After my friendship with Kim ended, I made friends in the middle of my sophmore year with another girl, Tammy, and I was keenly aware of the gift of friendship. I enjoyed much of the same closeness with Tammy as I had with Kim. We liked the same kinds of subjects in school (English and history) and we listened to the same music, even creating a list of our favorite 100 songs. (It’s hard to believe we knew 100 songs.) We took a few classes together and we studied for the SAT together the night before the test. I still remember that fateful night because I locked my keys in my car and had to call AAA for the first time in my life. Upon graduation Tammy and I went to different colleges. I remember feeling hopeful that I could find someone to take Tammy’s place. No one did.  But the emptiness taught me to be grateful. I was grateful for the friendship I had enjoyed and I knew from experience that loneliness would not last forever.

Sometimes love is just for a season of our lives, like my friendship with Kim. Sometimes it is for a lifetime, like the love I have for my family and certain friends like Tammy, who I still see at least once a year. And sometimes what appears as loss is only temporary. Tsukuru finds his friends after 16 years and each reuniting is all the more powerful because of the time that has passed. The most poignant scene comes when Tsukuru travels all the way from Tokyo to rural Finland to track down one of the friends. There, in a quaint village by a lake, Tsukuru learns some important lessons about love, life and loss.

Throughout Murakami’s story about Tsukuru is the question of whether he will stay with his girlfriend, Sara, the person who has urged him to look into his past life. Somewhere along the way we realize that this question is not as important as the fact that Sara has changed Tsukuru’s trajectory forerver. Without her nudging, he wouldn’t have tried to resolve his past. And this is what we can say about love: It changes us like no other force can. Whether it be temporary or lasting, love is never really a loss. Our friends influence us, change us and inspire us. We are more human and more ourselves because of love.

Until the age of 8 I lived in a suburb of Chicago. It was a typical suburb, with tract homes in various models, nicely kept lawns and safe streets. Our little community was full of kids. It seemed that everyone who bought a house in our neighborhood had young kids so there were lots of choices of playmates. I could ride my bike up to the cul-de-sac and back and find other kids out playing. We had a nice yard, with a swing set and flower beds designed by my parents. I suppose our neighbhorhood had been farmland before it was turned into housing. It was perfectly flat and the only trees were the young ones planted by all the new homeowners.

In 1977 we moved from suburban Chicago to California. My dad had a new job. All our neighbors were envious of us and the truth was, we were happy to be going to warmer weather and my mother was happy to be free from the confines of our old neighbhorhood, where everyone knew everyone else’s business. Our new home in California couldn’t have been more different than our old one. It was built on a hillside with about an acre of land around it. We could hardly see our other neighbhors. There were very few kids in the neighbhorhood. In fact there were more deer grazing the hillsides than kids. My brother and I were happy with the arrangement though. We loved to have free reign of the hillside. There was a seasonal creek running through the property and lots of old oak trees to climb in. Our neighbhor had a goat they kept penned in a shed and we would bring it apples to eat. I spent a lot of time wandering through the open hills, exploring the stream and the flowers. Around the age of 12 I had my first real sense of God one day as I sat on the hillside taking in all the beauty. I just somehow felt God’s presence and an overwhelming sense of peace. I still go back to that spot from time to time and remember that moment.

There was not much danger on that hillside except for possibly the deer. Some of the deer had huge racks and they could be scary up close. Once a deer had kicked my dog in the mouth and it lost a tooth. One day my brother and I wandered far down the hill of our property and climbed through some thick underbrush. There we discovered where the deer slept. Under the shelter of some thick low brush were swirls of matted grass, evidently the place where deer bedded down at night. Even in the daytime this place was almost totally dark, like a cave, and the darkness scared me. I couldn’t wait to get out of that cave and back into the sunlight. I never again explored the deer cave but I had recurring dreams for years about it. In my dreams I would be playing happily and somehow I would end up in the darkness of the deer cave.

When I went off to college, back to Chicago, I missed the beauty of my Californnia home. I missed the sound of the stream outside my window and the way the fog would create different views. One night I was up late studying and dozing off and on in my little apartment when I was awakened by what I thought was a fog horn. We could always hear the fog horns from our house. But how could I have really heard a fog horn in Chicago? It sounded exactly like one to me. Was it a dream or was it real? I’ll never know.

Years later I moved into my own home. It was quite a big step, owning a home for the first time. It was an even bigger step given that when I moved into the house I was three days away from giving birth to my first son. The boxes had yet to be unpacked when I went into labor at 7 am. My water broke as I woke up in bed, soaking an entire towel. It was clear we needed to get to the hosptial. That morning, November 26. 1997, was rainy and we had to drive all the way from Berkeley to Walnut Creek, where I had planned to have the baby. I remember the discomfort of sitting in the car with the driving rain storm creating traffic in the tunnel. Once I got to the hosptial I was checked in and began the process of managing the contractions. I walked the halls of the hosptial for as long as possible believing this might speed things up and then I got into the shower. The shower was the best thing. I spent what seemed like hours in the shower. Finally it was time to push and I hated having to lay down. It didn’t seem right to me but I did it anyway. The pushing was the hardest part and I went through a mental list of all the women I knew who had given birth as a way to encourage me that this could be done. At the last minute, the vital signs on the monitor were going down and they didn’t know why. They said I needed to push harder. As it turned out the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck and they deftly clipped it off just in time. It was now 2:30 in the afternoon, not a terribly long labor, but I was exhausted. I spent one night in the hospital learning how to breastfeed and hold my baby and feeling overwhelmed by my new responsibility.

Driving home the next day it was sunny outside and I felt awkward getting out of the car with a car seat in hand. Since it was Thanksgiving, my mother had prepared a dinner for us but I didn’t really enjoy it. All I wanted was to lie down in bed. I couldn’t quite believe that I was now responsible for the life of another human being. How could I manage that. Perhaps out of my concern, that night I had the most memorable dream of my life. I dreamt that I was in a boat with my brother and mother and we were being ferried through a great channel. We had come out of a tunnel in our boat and were now trying to make it to the other side. We were in the River Styx and I worried where our destination would be. Suddenly the boat image disappeared and I was floating in a light-filled chamber. Above me was Jesus, with his arms outstretched. The chamber was the most still, quiet place I have ever experienced. There was no noise of any kind and the filtered light felt like the light that comes through stained glass. It was as if all time had stopped in this chamber. Just as I floated up to touch Jesus, I woke up. I was convinced that I had seen Jesus for real in that otherworldly space and, on further reflection, I decided he had given me that vision as a comfort. No matter how worried I might be about taking care of this new baby, Jesus would be there for me and would not leave me. I held onto the memory of that dream for a long time.

Since that time I have hoped for other visions of Jesus but none have occurred. Maybe God knows when we need these kinds of visions and maybe some are meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In the meantime I treasure those times when I simply feel the presence of God, which is usually in nature, just like that first time when I was a child sitting on my hillside.

At this time of the year, we celebrate a lot of things. It got me thinking about celebrations and when I think of the word celebration, big events come to mind: Christmases, my wedding, my husband’s big surprise 30^th birthday party, my 40^th birthday party, friends’ weddings and vacations. These events are memorable and exciting and generate lots of photos, but I think just as important are the many smaller celebrations in life. Sometimes those smaller moments can be even more special as they are more spontaneous and relaxed.

Lately I’ve taken up the game of golf. I can’t really say I play so much as I try to play. I got into the game because my older son loves it. And he especially loves when I come with him. For my birthday last year he bought me a set of ladies’ leftie pink clubs. They say “Golf Girl,” on them, quite a name to live up to. In any case, going out with my son has been a good way to spend quality time together. The course where we play is pretty, with rolling hills and views of the bay. Even when I’m doing badly the walk is nice. Celebration enters the picture every time I hit the ball somewhat decently. When I don’t shank it or miss it altogether, I’m pretty happy. My son, who is very good, is always encouraging. I try to encourage him as well and celebrate his good shots. Then there’s always the drink or lunch after the game, which I enjoy just as much as the game itself.

My son and I have also been cooking together a lot recently. He loves to find recipes on the internet and make out shopping lists for me to buy. We’ve had many successes, like Asian-spiced chicken thighs and honey mustard chicken and a few failures, like the brownies that we overcooked. Each time we find a good recipe, it’s like a little celebration that the whole family gets to enjoy.

My other son has recently started a new tradition with my husband. About once a week they get up early and go out to breakfast before school. This has been a great time for them to connect, away from the TV and video games. I would even call it a celebration of sorts, celebrating uninterrupted time together.

Recently a new member of our family has arrived and he’s created his own set of rituals and celebrations. He weighs 5 pounds and he’s three months old. He’s a miniature schnauzer. After not having had a dog for 4 years, Romeo is adding a lot of life to our house. One of my favorite rituals is our daily walk. There’s nothing more fun than watching Romeo bound up the street, alert to every sound and sight. Whenever a person passes, he’s unsure of what to do so he just sits down and waits for them to pass. Encountering another dog is pure joy. He bouncing up and down wanting to play with them. Another favorite ritual is sitting at my computer at the end of the day and watching Romeo curl up at my feet, sleeping contentedly. On the celebration side of things, potty training is the order of the day and each time he have a success outside, he gets a reward and we feel we are one step closer to reaching that goal.

Another low-key kind of celebration in my life right now is my weekly coffee date with my friend Camille. I’ve known Camille since we were in 6^th grade but for a long time we lived in different parts of the country. Two years ago she moved to the Bay Area and so we could resume our friendship. After all these years we’re still basically the same people. There is something comforting about being with someone that has known you that long, has been in your wedding, has watched you evolve as a mother and knows what makes you tick. I consider it a great blessing to have Camille back in my life.

Maybe I could say I even prefer these small celebrations to the bigger ones. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but one of the best memories of my wedding was leaving it. I’m not a gregarious person and the pressure of having to smile and greet hundreds of people was somewhat stressful. I’ll never forget the great feeling of climbing into our car at the end of the wedding and driving away to a little bed and breakfast in the city. As soon as we arrived we ordered Chinese take-out, since we hadn’t had time to each much, and we watched TV. It was bliss.

The year is 1974. My mom, in a bright red matching skirt and sweater and huge sunglasses, and me, in a white poncho sweater and flared pants, stand in a sandy construction lot in Sun City, Arizona. Behind us is Mimosa Drive, the street my grandparents would live on for the next 30 years. In the background there is more sand and a line of palm trees bordering the site of a future golf course. Not yet in place are the saguaro cacti and colored rocks that would dot the front yards along with street.

My grandparents moved to Sun City to escape chilly Chicago winters and to find a more relaxed style of life. In both respects, they succeeded. In my growing up years I remember visiting them and noticing my grandfather’s year-round tan and muscular frame from daily swims and bike rides. Every time we came, Grandpa enjoyed taking us to his community recreation center and recounting the story of Del Webb, the famed businessman who had created this new kind of retirement living—a dream for those who wanted warm weather, a sparkling, planned community and low property taxes.

My grandfather was committed to Sun City 100 percent. He served as part of the Sun City Prides, a volunteer group that swept city streets, picked up leaves and fallen oranges and did whatever else was needed to keep the city clean and neat. Grandpa would swim most mornings and then load up the big basket of his special three-wheeled bike with a rake and other tools. Whenever we visited, the bike became the prime entertainment for my brother and who would take turns driving and sitting in the basket and cruising up and down the manicured streets. We would often get lost on the bike, as the streets and houses all looked similar, and we’d spend half our time trying to figure out how to get back to Mimosa Drive, hopefully just at the end of cocktail hour and just in time for Grandma’s dinner.

Grandpa’s passion for Sun City was just one example of how he viewed the world. If he believed in something, he committed his whole self to the cause. He was a lifelong churchgoer, faithful church volunteer and Bible reader. He was a devoted husband and father to his two boys. And he and my grandma were also frugal to the extreme. They had lived through the great depression and waste was a four-letter word. Whenever Grandpa visited our house in California, it was almost as if it were 1930 again. Grandpa scolded us for leaving lights on in rooms we weren’t in and we were urged to join the “clean plate club” every night at dinner. Grandma saved paper napkins that had been only lightly soiled and we were shown how to save our chewing gum on a little plate for after meal time. In addition to these ideas, Grandpa had some strong ideas about hygiene. We were told to chew our food 32 times and when we were younger, but probably almost to our teenage years, he tried to get us to keep a chart of our bowel movements. I still remember the famed “bm chart” taped to the refrigerator.

For all the discipline though, living under my grandparents rules included a lot of fun. Instead of TV after dinner, they would teach us dice and card games. And Grandpa always had a joke to share, usually off-color. At night before bedtime, he taught me how to say the Lord’s prayer.

My Grandpa and Grandma took care of my brother and I quite a bit when we were growing up and my parents traveled. Grandpa would not only lay out the rules, but he made our house his own. No sooner had Grandpa arrived than he had changed all the radios to the big band station and he had found a slew of house projects that my parents didn’t even know had to be done. His nervous energy kept him moving all day. Grandpa had worked in the laundry business most of his life–first for his parents’ laundry on the south side of Chicago, then managing laundries around the Midwest and finally owning one of his own in South Dakota–and he was meticulous about cleanliness. I remember him spending a lot of time in the garage cleaning things. At his home in Sun City, he was the one, not my grandma, who did all the laundry.

When Grandpa got sick in his late ‘80s, it was hard to watch his decline. His vibrant, healthy body lost more and more weight and he was unable to keep busy and do all the activities he loved. His pain affected his mental state and he said hurtful things to my grandma, things he would have never said before, even though they did more than their share of bickering as a couple. I remember my last visit to see Grandpa in Sun City as a sad one. At the time I was in a year-long study of the Ignatian Exercises with my church at home. When I got back from the trip and described the grief of seeing my diminished grandpa to my pastor, she said perhaps this was my cross to bear at this time in my life.

Grandpa lived to be 89. He was one-of-a-kind. I’ll never forget his zest for life nor his commitment to the things he believed in. I didn’t always agree with him, but I’ll always respect the way he lived his life.

“Hi, I’m Yurit,” said the tall lanky man, “…like you’re it.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, studying his wisps of blonde hair and trying to guess the origins of his European accent.

“Have you had a lesson before?” he said.

“No, this is my first one,”  I said.

“Oh, well, it’s a nice day,” said Yurit. “Why don’t you go over there and find a wetsuit and lifejacket.”

He was already dressed in a slightly beat up pair of waterproof yellow pants and windbreaker.

It was my first sailing lesson in at least 25 years. I had decided it was time to stop dreaming about being on the water every time I drove alongside the bay and just do it. I had started sailing when I was 10 or 11 and continued until sometime in high school. I had loved the feeling of being on the open water, the fun of controlling a little boat, and the magnificent views of the bay. Eventually I got too busy to sail much and the last time I remember taking my boat out was to give my boyfriend, now husband, a ride. He was nervous, not being a water person, and the boat was pretty tiny and prone to tipping. After that I moved to Chicago for several years and my sailing career was put on a long hold.

I went to the storeroom to find a wetsuit. As a kid I had never worn a wetsuit. Kids don’t get cold easily. However, it appeared that all the adults at this club wore wetsuits. I had no idea which was my size and I must have picked a child’s version. I could barely get it on. Once on, I could barely breath. This must be wrong, I thought, and I spent a panicky 5 minutes trying to peel the thing off. It probably didn’t help that I had forgotten to bring a bathing suit and was trying to wear the wetsuit over my clothes. I’ll have to remember that next time, I thought. I went back to the rack and found a slightly bigger suit.

“Are you OK in there,” called Yurit.

“Yes, I got the wrong size wetsuit but I’m doing better now,” I said, feeling like I was possibly failing before I ever got onto the water.

When I finally came out of the changing room, there was another student waiting, a young guy with fashionable sunglasses and a serious demeanor. We introduced ourselves (his name was Ryan) and I made a joke about how getting the wetsuit on was probably the hardest part of sailing. Ryan didn’t smile. I guess he was serious about this class.

We stood in the boatyard for a few minutes while Yurit led us through the steps of checking the boat rigging and using the hoist to drop the boat in the water. At some point, I asked Yurit where he was from and he said, “Holland, the United States of Europe.” I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant (was that a joke about Holland being similar to the U.S.?) but I could see that his native land had endowed him with a precise and detailed way of explaining things.

Once we had the boat in the water, we climbed aboard gingerly, so as not to capsize the boat or fall into the water ourselves, and Yurit hoisted the sail, lowered the rudder and sailed us away from the dock.

I was almost giddy with excitement. It was a warm September day, with a gentle breeze and few waves. It was a perfect day for my first lesson. My heart felt so full as I took in the view of the Berkeley hills, fascinated by how different the city looks from the water than from land. Somehow the hills looked so much bigger, dwarfing the buildings. The city looked like a small model, each landmark like a child’s toy–there was the Campanile, tall and white, and over there was the Claremont Hotel, stretching out grandly. I recalled sailing as a child in a little cove between Tiburon and Belvedere and seeing the houses hanging off hillsides. There were huge old houses, summer homes from another century, each one different and unique. I never got tired of looking at that view and the view of the water sparkling out toward the San Francisco skyline. Time stands still when you are on the water, as you enter a different space. Even as a child I could appreciate the slowing down of time and the chance to look at things from a different perspective. Certainly I wasn’t unique though. I think most children enjoy taking things slowly, living in the moment. It’s adults who have more trouble separating from busyness.

As our boat cut through the water, Yurit kept up an almost incessant dialogue of questions and explanations: How can you tell where the wind is coming from? How can you slow down your boat? What is tacking? Do you know the different between tacking and jibing? I was really only half paying attention to all the words. I just wanted him to stop talking for a while. I thought, it’s so beautiful out here. Why are you ruining it with all this talk? In my memories I remembered sailing being quiet, just the sound of waves and the pleasure of taking in the scenery. Then I remembered, oh, right, this is a lesson after all. I guess he is supposed to be teaching us stuff.  I remembered back to my childhood lessons and realized that there had been a lot of instruction involved. There were hours on the dock spent learning how to rig the boats, tie knots and memorize sailing terms. There were some dramatic moments too, like the time I forgot to put the plug in the my boat and almost sank. And there was also plenty of social navigation, as sailing with a friend or teacher involves good communication and teamwork. Somehow, though, I had mostly remembered the peaceful solitary moments. Maybe I had reduced the experience to just this one aspect. How often do we do that with experiences in our lives? We just remember one part of it strongly but forgot the other really valuable lessons we learn.

That day our little group of three spent more than an hour on the water, Ryan and I both piloting the boat, getting the feel for the tiller and the sail, Yurit continuing to give us tips, terms and facts. We practiced tacking and Yurit instructed us to say, “Ready to tack” and then “Helm’s allee” as we tacked and “ready to jibe and jibe ho.” Since I had only sailed solo before I had never had to give instructions to a crew. This “helm’s allee” and “jibe ho” business seemed sort of silly to me. I wondered if Yurit had a dry sense of humor and was trying to humor us. “Do people actually say these things? I asked. Oh, yes, yes,” he said with a smile. “Those are real terms. Sailors use all kinds of old-fashioned sailing words.”

By the end of that first lesson, I was happy to be back on the water. I realized that re-learning these skills would take a little more work than I thought. I also realized that sailing was going to have even more to offer than I remembered or expected and I was thankful for that.

A few days later, I took a second lesson. This time I paid close attention to all the instructions, kept my eyes on the boat, asked questions. I looked wisftully at the view a few times, but realized this part of the experience would come later.

Lately I’ve been playing cards and board games with my husband after dinner. It’s a nice way to spend the evening. It feels like a throwback to earlier, more simple times. Instead of retiring in front of the TV or computer, we sit at the kitchen table and deal out the cards.

Our game of choice has been Rummikub, a spinoff of Gin Rummy, but tonight we are going to play Spite and Malice. My husband’s aunt Mila taught us Spite and Malice and every time we play we think of her. Unlike the name of the game we learned from her, Mila was free of malice. In fact, she was one of the kindest and calmest people I’ve ever met. She was a librarian with the Bakersfield Library and loved books, crossword puzzles and her cats. She and her husband Mike lived in a ‘50s modernist house with a pool that must have been quite stylish when it was built. Mike was a geologist and he left behind a collection of polished rocks and model ships. We inherited his rock collection and one night not long ago I sorted it by color and stacked the rocks by layers of color into a glass cylinder. Sorting through those rocks was a zen-like experience. As I held each rock I felt its weight in my hand and I examined its color and put it in a pile. I thought of Mike, surveying out in the oil fields of Bakersfield and collecting rocks along the way. He must have spent a lot of time carting home the rocks and polishing them.

Like sorting rocks, playing cards is a zen-like experience. You focus on the here and now, what’s right in front of you. You don’t think about tomorrow’s plans or yesterday’s disappointments. You focus in on the cards at hand and it feels freeing. I think everyone needs a few activities in their day like this. For some it may be gardening; for others music or painting or writing. Other people play online games like Farmville, maybe for the same effect. Maybe tomorrow my husband and I will start a game of Scrabble and get lost in words.