One of the aphorisms of my youth was the statement 'A rolling stone gathers no moss.' From my current perspective I think I have to disagree with that statement. I have certainly filled the definition of a rolling stone with family in both the foreign service and the military. The first ten years of my married life I moved seven times, and as a child I attended ten schools by the time I finished high school.
But in all of my rolling, I have collected friendships and special people that have remained with me throughout all the peripatetic years. Perhaps they are not the 'moss' of my life, a vegetation which has very shallow roots and can be pulled up easily, but are the solid soil in which the moss has grown. That moss may be the acquaintances which we all had over the years: the other mothers who made the soccer carpool work, the fellow parents who helped with the school Halloween party, or the neighbors from long-ago houses. They were an important part of our lives at a certain time, but were not the ones embedded deeply in our hearts. Those may be few and far between, but more precious for their rarity. Look more closely at that rolling stone, and while it may not have moss, deep in its crevices are the friendships and comrades of a long life of rolling.