Friday, May 22, 2020

Friendship Keeps Us Connected


Makes Things Less Scary


Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

In this time of social distancing friends are more important than ever. Thinking of the times we've spent together, we share ourselves and build our lives. And now – phoning, texting, Facebooking, waving from our windows – we reach out.


SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel just celebrated 10 years of friendship in April. It seems like we've been friends forever...an endless summer of new adventures. Patti's husband Greg calls us "two peas in a pod." 


Famed artist Georgia O'Keeffe compared friendship to developing an artist's eye…and learning to recognize and value the small things.


Sunny has known her lifelong friend Cyn Mejia-Giudici since they were in elementary school in Seattle. Their dads were both in the Navy and the two families stayed close even when they moved to different states.


Sunny always laughs when she thinks of the adventure she and Cyn had when they were just out of high school and drove from SoCal to San Francisco in her 1966 Barracuda.


Seeing them drive away, her mom quickly loaded up the family car with Sunny's brothers and sisters and followed behind all the way to keep an eye on them.

Patti has childhood friends she still sees every year for an annual post-Thanksgiving Culver City High School girls' brunch.


Giving thanks for each other over glasses of wine, lifetimes and milestones are shared and celebrated.


As SurfWriter Girls, writing beach-themed stories, we've made amazing friends, including our mentor Tony Soriano, Surfrider Foundation Huntington/Seal Beach chapter advisor. Tony, an environmentalist, spends almost as much time cleaning the beach as surfing the waves.


Friends can come in all shapes and sizes, seem perfectly matched or total opposites. They know what we're thinking before we think it.


They see our flaws, but like us anyway, reminding us that – no matter the distance or danger – we will always be in their hearts.


And, like Calvin and Hobbes, they help to keep us safe.




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Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given. 


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