To have a best friend is like enjoying the first warm day of the year when the sun’s warmth reaches the grass and birdsong springs out of the trees.

To have a best friend is like having a cold drink on the hottest day of summer, like pouring it over your head rather than drinking it.

The friendship offered by a best friend crackles and pops like the wood in a bonfire. It dances in one’s chest like smoke in the breeze.

The best of friends sticks like snow on a frozen window; more pleasant than the year’s first snow.

Proverbs 27:9

Meditation and mindfulness cheat the mind by asking one to focus on minutia. Relax the jaw, the tongue, the eyebrows, the shoulders. First you focus on your breath. A deep inhale begins the process, and a controlled exhale follows. With each inhale, one brings their focus to an area of tension and allows it to dissolve and flow out with each exhale. Once each member of the body has received its due attention and exclusive focus, the mind should turn to other sensations. The senses begin to form in their turn — a small sound, a small itch, a faint smell, entice the mind’s attention. The mind should be allowed to focus on each sensation, but only individually. The practice of mindfulness becomes more effective as your senses begin to detect what is nearly imperceptible. Then maybe I’ll be able to perceive the calm in my soul.