What shall I name thee?

S~ and I were discussing the nature of relationships and he talked about relationships that have no name, some relationships that cannot be morphed to fit into a predefined slice, some relationships that lose meaning or gain a personality it doesn't possess if you try to categorize it...

And I wondered if there are indeed some relationships that we have failed to identify and classify. I wondered if it is the nature of the relationship or the inadequacy of our expression that failed to pick a name.

And today, as I talked to my Doctor about my general check-up and we discussed my health, I realized just how much trust I was placing in her hands. A stranger, yes. But a stranger that I shared something about me that I would hesitate sharing with a friend, yet placing a trust on her that would seem out of place except there. How do I categorize this relationship, that lasts just those moments spent in a bright and shining clinic room behind closed curtains?

I recently watched "Under the Tuscan Sun" and while the movie itself failed to leave a mark on me, I recalled a scene from it, an old man who comes daily to place flowers by his wife's grave and every day, he would look up and nod at Diane Lane as she watched him from her verandah. A glance of familiarity and empathy that lasted for a fraction of a second but that she looked forward to every day...a feeling that lasted only for those brief moments each day and yet it existed, it was real. What would she call this relationship?

And that made me think of all those people with no names that we run into every day at work, that we greet at the grocery store, distant aunts and uncles that we talk to for fifteen minutes once a year but take comfort in the fact that they exist - people who play a small but comforting part in our lives.

Here's my curtsey to them for completing the circle of my life. And a curtsey to all the people with names, that fill my little circle with meaning.

And as I am wont to doing, here's an article that left an impact on me, only vaguely related to this post. I just hope those nameless relationships in my lives won't go away like Paul, I hope I get a chance to say what I want to say to those people with no names. And even more so with the others...

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