Last Sunday, E and I visited the First Unitarian Church in Santa Fe. The service was about friendship. I was delighted to see Munro Sickafoose, from PDX. He's the intern minister, and he gave the children's sermon. Friends were compared to various vegetables. The kids pulled vegetables out of a huge basket, to the accompanying descriptions: eggplants are elegant and beautiful, Jerusalem artichokes are quirky and funny. I wouldn't say an onion is complex, myself, but you get the picture.
We sang "Lean on Me." The readings included the ever-popular "A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet." There was nothing earth shattering about any of it, but it fit my current thoughts very well. E found the service lively and the congregation welcoming, but the sermon a bit long and repetitive. I would agree with that, but I spent most of the time knitting and thinking, so the sermon was a reasonable counterpoint for me.
I'm curious about the human need to codify things, and I'm also intrigued by the theory that we are genetically coded for friendship. The minister put friendship in four layered categories: public (those people we keep running into at concerts and dog parks and libraries); social (those people with whom we make dates or to whom we gravitate during large gatherings); personal (those who listen to us kvetch and know some of our deep secrets); intimate (those with whom we build a life, share tears, share silence.) While we need all of these to create community, and we need community to live a meaningful life, we cannot manage more than a few intimate or personal friends in a lifetime, and people move from one category to the other as we grow and change.
As I said, this was nothing earth-shaking, but I found myself thinking about my current situation. E and I are both isolated from our long-term friends, and we are both coming to terms with that. The difference is that she is 98 and I am 54. She is mourning the loss of her community, but she is not really looking to build a new one here. The cooperative and some people at church will probably suffice. I, on the other hand, am still mourning the loss of Portland friendships, and now I have left my new Albuquerque friends. In addition, I am trying to figure out just what my friendship was with D, and where I go from there, and I am still trying to maintain connections with my musical and personal/intimate friends.
When I began this gig, the initial idea was to pretend I'm on a retreat or a journey: I'm living up in these hills, learning the geography, becoming acquainted with flora and fauna, taking things slowly. I spend the morning practicing tai chi chih, doing the crossword, drinking coffee. I plan to spend the afternoon practicing, drawing, writing, learning Spanish, walking, reading, doing the creative and soul-building things I have not had time to do, healing from the past 10 years of loss and difficulty. I tell myself I haven't lost my friends, I'm just on a private adventure, and I'll get back to them later.
That's all very well, but there's that darn genetic coding to contend with. I need people. I need to feel needed. I miss seeing and talking and cooking and hugging and sleeping with my friends. I miss Monday morning yoga with M, Sunday hikes with G, duets and trios with C and M, UCC choir with A, early morning walks with J, the occasional sleepover with S and N, lunch with T. And that's just the Albuquerque contingent. There are the Scrabble games with M, the dinner parties, the walks and hikes, the trips, the wine-tasting, the plays and movies, the yoga at B's, the family gatherings, the music, the work, the knitting group....so many friendships built up through the years, so many activities. All fading in memory.
So, I've been brooding. And then I listened to the sermon and I thought, yes, it's okay that my friendships are moving from more intimate and personal to social to maybe just memories. It's what happens in life. It's not physically possible to maintain tight connections with all the wonderful people who have crossed my path.
It is, however, possible to pick up where you left off, as I discovered a few weeks ago, when 3 of my advisee group from college came for a visit. B was the only person whom I have seen regularly: we have traveled together several times since our first big Europe trip after we graduated, and we see each other regularly when I visit my family at Christmas. She writes excellent long letters, shares her photographs and her thoughts, and responds to mine. I was not surprised to feel connected with her. It was different with G and C. I haven't seen them in 30+ years, and the letters and phone calls have been spotty to say the least. And yet....there they were. Lovable, quirky, fun, caring, trustworthy. Friends.
There was a lot to catch up on, but that's different from re-learning the friendship.
So....old friends. They are a treasure. They cannot be replaced; and, it seems, they cannot be lost.
But, they also aren't here. And I'm back to where I was before. Brooding, lonely. Mourning my lost friends and activities. Envious that they are continuing to build their friendships without me. Wondering what life holds for me in this next adventure. Wondering if these fledgling friendships will stand the test of time. Hoping so, but doubting it. T, for example....we met a year ago, and he rapidly moved up the friendship ladder from social to personal to intimate for a short time. Then he quickly ran back down the ladder....personal, then social, now...absent. He was there when I really needed someone, and I think I'll always love him for that. I don't need him now, but I miss him, and I don't know why he left. Where does that fit in the friendship category?
It's hard to not take the loss of a friendship personally. I always wonder what I did to drive a friend away. Currently it's obvious: I've physically left friends old and friends new, and I have not maintained the virtual connection. But that doesn't cover all the losses. In my past, I assumed that the closer people got, the more likely they were to find out how very unlovable and irritating and just plain burdensome I am. And, just when I felt comfortable enough to say, "this is a friend, this is a lover, this is a trusted other," the gods (bored angels, if you will) would hear it and take the friend away. I still have that fear niggling in the background. I am afraid to ask for time or caring, afraid that I will appear needy. I'm still a twelve-year-old, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the loss, prepared for it, but always hurt when it comes.
Simultaneously, the rationale mind is chiding me: this is not a personal thing. The Other has his/her own demons, problems, needs. You have very little to do with his/her decisions and actions. Your job is to be a friend to yourself, to grow, to become a trustworthy, likable person. Loss comes with the territory, and not everyone you need will need you back. In fact neediness is not something to foster on either side.
That being said, I realize one reason why I miss D. He was the only person whose need for me was boundless, who would never leave. It wasn't good for either of us, of course, and I'm not even sure he liked me, but he certainly cared. Oh how he cared. And for the first time, I was the one doing the leaving.
I thought about this the other day, and then the whole concept was brought into sharp focus when my friend S lost his ex-wife. She was his D: needy, charismatic, demanding. "If you really loved me you would...." But she was also his best friend, the love of his life. They never stopped communicating after the divorce, and he fully expected to be there for all the important passages of of her life. So, her sudden death in another country left him full of guilt and grief. He wasn't there. It was not right.
How does one let one's friends know they matter? How does one maintain connections through separate lives, duties, and distances? How does one continue to grow friendships while fostering the old ones? How does one grieve the loss of a friend without feeling guilty about the sins of omission and commission?
I listened to S talk, held him while he cried, cried with him. I didn't have any wisdom or emotional salve for his grief. I was present, and that was enough. And that's when I finally come to recognize why I am still brooding about D, and about my absent friends. I cannot be present for them, and I want to be.
That day he woke up
In a world that did not have
His best friend in it.
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