A small affirmation

Today, caught up with Tamara for the first time in a while, and she presented me with a copy of the Zadie Smith volume from the Penguin birthday series. Unfortunately, of course, I already owned it, but I appreciated the thought, not only insofar as it's always nice to receive gifts (it's beside the point that circumstance caused me to spurn this one!) but also because it reminded me of the delicate but sharp happiness and sense of rightness and reassurance that comes of having friends who share my tastes and who, in some contingent-partial-illusory-etc but nonetheless real sense, Understand things. I noticed a while ago that these days I'm pretty well off in that regard (in terms of the company I keep and friends I've kept), but often it's the little crystallisations which resonate most clearly.