The Big Picture — Circle of Friends Challenge

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blogging101, Circle of Friends, Creative Writing, Journaling, Memories & Reflections, Uncategorized, Writing 101, Writing Prompts

I’ve been trying to get my head around Raili’s Circle of Friends Challenge over at soulgifts — Telling Tales. I finally had to just focus on something she said in her comment to me answering my request for clarification. She said:

The theme invites us to use our imagination to create a world in which friendships and relationships are unconditionally loving. Your job, should you choose to accept it is to take a small slice, like a microscopic view of a tiny bit of it and tell us about it.

As I was pondering that it made me think of a group I’ve belonged to since shortly after Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring was released. The group’s name is Elvenhome. A lot of folks have come and gone over the years, but there’s a core community of around 21 or so folks that have been forever faithful to the fellowship. And though the forum was started because of the excitement over Jackson’s movies, that core group transcended all of the glamour to become quite a close knit family.

We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs together. Some members were quite young (in their teens) when the site started up, and some of us were older (in our forties and up). We are fairly spread out. Most of us hail from Portugal, Australia, Canada, Wales, and the US. Marriages (two members), broken hearts, deaths, divorces, babies, extreme illnesses, you name it we’ve all lived through it together. But I hasten to add it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. There have been times when people have misunderstood each other and gotten on someone’s nerves, but in the end those things have been talked through and life has returned to that shared community. That’s how it should be. No world is perfect, but it can be pretty close if there’s enough love and respect.

The really cool thing is that so many of us have met each other and maintained those relationships for twelve plus years now. I’ve been with five of the members on more than one occasion.

So when Raili says to look at a little slice of what I would see as a picture of a loving, friendship-based world, Elvenhome would be it for me.

  This was the banner on our forum for our 12th Anniversary.
It was designed by Soni Alcorn-Hender, the head of the forum
who is one hell of a an artist!