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8.22.2008

Let It Breathe

Over the past week the subject of friendship has come up over and over again. Not believing in coincidences, I've taken this as something I'm supposed to look into and examine.

Last night as I sat listening to the music of Simon and Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, Peter, Paul and Mary, and other folk artists of the 60s, I enjoyed watching my memories of those years pass across my mind. That's when it occurred to me that this month marks the 40th anniversary of my and Deni's friendship. Forty years. Incredible. How does a friendship that started when we were only sixteen last that long? I think of everything we've been through, both individually and together, and it blows my mind. I think, as I commented on someone's blog the other day, that it comes down to letting it breathe. Many years ago Donovan recited the following poem:

When two lovers touch hands,
They touch the two of them touching hands,
They touch the one of them in the space between
As each the other's hands doth touch.

When two lovers kiss lips,
They kiss the two of them kissing lips,
They kiss the one of them in the space between
As each the other's lip doth kiss.

When two lovers hold each other,
They hold the two of them holding each other,
They hold the one of them in the space between
As each the other holds.

I've never been casual about friendship. In fact, I've always loved my friends more fiercely than I've befriended my lovers. Ville says, "I don't make friends, I fall in love" and that's true for me, too. (Our friendship is 21 years old now--old enough to drink!) Friendship is love, just as romance is love, except that friendship doesn't have all of the legal, social, and moral expectations and obligations attached to it. In some ways it's freer, with fewer strings attached. I'm not saying that one is better or higher than the other, I'm just saying that they're different, yet they're the same in that they go through very similar phases.

When I meet a new friend, I want to spend as much time as possible with them. We become inseparable. There's the "honeymoon" phase during which everything about them is delightful, funny, meaningful, and our conversations are punctuated with, "Me too!" and "I never thought anyone else felt that way!" Then a little time passes and you start to notice things that bug you. Reality steps in and you find ways that you are different. Sometimes there are disagreements and sometimes a falling-out can happen. And when you call it quits it's as painful as ending a romance. When one of my oldest friends and I broke up years ago, I dubbed it "Let it Be" because it was every bit as painful and bitter as what the Beatles went through (also, we were Beatle Peatles together since the age of twelve). It was a divorce and, because we'd been roommates for a few years, there was even community property. We never worked out our differences and over the years we grew so far apart in our interests and beliefs that there was no bridging the gap when she tried to woo me back a couple of years ago. We had nothing in common anymore.

But I think that if we allow the friendship to grow and evolve as if it were a separate entity--a child, if you like--then we will never lose that friendship. It has to breathe, and sometimes when it inhales, it pushes the two people apart. But then it exhales and we're brought back together. If we let it grow and venture outward, it will only be stronger when it returns to us. Of course, all I'm saying is that we need to allow our friends to be who and what they are. No strings, no conditions. Some friendships can be saved and some can't, though.

Kahlil Gibran said that we should have spaces in our togetherness. What breathes in there is the one "in the space between".

Happy 40th Deni. I cannot imagine my life without you in it and I can't imagine what I would have been had we never met.

You may read the story of our friendship here.

15 comments :

  1. Wow!! What a beautiful post Berg. 40 years!! That's a whole lot longer than most marriages.
    All that know you are also blessed to be able to see even glimpses of what the 2 of you share. Friendships like these create a real and tangible force that spreads when touched. You know....like a rash.
    I love you both!!

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  2. I think I need a hankie!!

    I remember that first day that I saw you as clearly as if it was yesterday. (With the way my mind has been going recently, maybe better.) Other than my family, you are the person who has been in my life longer than any other. And it was wonderful yesterday to know that I could call and talk to you for just as I could for all the years in between.

    Congrats to you and Ville, too! I remember when our friendship was old enough to drink and we raised a pint of cider to celebrate it. That was the same year that I met Ville. There's something very satisfying about that sort of continuity.

    One of these days we are going to have that evening of playing guitars and just being old folkie hippies again, even if we can't manage to sit on the floor any more! :D

    I love you. The BF says "Ribbet!"

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  3. Very nice post, i couldn't agree more!!!

    M

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  4. "talk to you for just as I could for all the years in between. "

    WTF!?!?!! LOL.

    I think it makes sense if you take out the first "for".

    ::sigh:: I miss my brain.

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  5. YOU ARE KEEEELLLINNNGG MEEEE!!!!

    This was a good description of what makes a relationship work. That being working on a relationship. And it is different with romantic versus friendship love.


    So perhaps this is where my task lays. How do we address the crimes between us? With my husband it is simple, we really have no conflicts and if we do, we simple adjust to each other and it gets better right away.

    But as you said, there are lesser strings attached in friendship love.

    fuck. I am still not sure what to do now.

    But Ramona will be back soon, and she will read the post. And we will discuss it and I will bring your post to her attention.

    I think that Ramona and I have to agree on goals. On common wants and needs from this friendship. And commit to working towards them.

    Our friendship is about two years old now. We are barely babies in this.

    Thanks for this post; it certainly affects me in very positive and wistful ways.

    Take care,

    Mrs. Hall

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  6. I've never gone into a friendship with a list of needs and goals, but that's just me. To me, that equates expectations and conditions. I guess I'm just an old hippie and am Zen about relationships: it's about the journey along the way, not the final destination. I could never in a million years predicted that Deni I would still be friends back when we were sitting in her incense-filled bedroom listening to Donovan!

    ...Would you mind passing the dutchy on the left-hand side? Oh, and Deni, don't Bogart that hankie!

    Thanks all for your lovely comments. I'm needing the positive reinforcement right now.

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  7. "I could never in a million years predicted..."

    You're not the only one Deni! I meant to say:

    "I could HAVE never in a million years predicted..."

    ...or did I split my infinitive there?

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  8. I could [have] never in a million years predicted that Deni I would still be friends back when we were sitting in her incense-filled bedroom listening to Donovan!

    Heck, neither one of us could have ever predicted that we would ever be this age. I always think of S&G's "Bookends" -- "How terribly strange to be 70." Well, we're not 70 yet, but it's pretty darned strange to be the age we are.

    The thing that, for me, has characterized my friendship with Steph all these years is acceptance for what we happen to be at any given moment. We've been through a lot of changes and been in different "places" than each other at various times, but it never mattered. When one went in a different direction, the other always just wished the best and understood that it was another part of our growth.

    I can truthfully say that there have been exactly two people in my life -- ever -- who have seen me as I am and accepted me without trying to mold me into what they wanted me to be. One is my husband. The other is Steph. [hankie time] I am truly blessed, for I believe that most people never get to have even one person who loves them that much.

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  9. I too am blessed, with you, Nettl and Ville.

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  10. wow.. 40 years.. i've known Earl for about 17 now, and i think THATS a long time...

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  11. Well, I think knowing Earl for that long WOULD feel like a long time.

    ;) to Earl.

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  12. Very nice post, i couldn't agree more!!!

    M

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  13. I think I need a hankie!!

    I remember that first day that I saw you as clearly as if it was yesterday. (With the way my mind has been going recently, maybe better.) Other than my family, you are the person who has been in my life longer than any other. And it was wonderful yesterday to know that I could call and talk to you for just as I could for all the years in between.

    Congrats to you and Ville, too! I remember when our friendship was old enough to drink and we raised a pint of cider to celebrate it. That was the same year that I met Ville. There's something very satisfying about that sort of continuity.

    One of these days we are going to have that evening of playing guitars and just being old folkie hippies again, even if we can't manage to sit on the floor any more! :D

    I love you. The BF says "Ribbet!"

    ReplyDelete

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