Friendship. We all need it in our lives, no matter our age.
I’ve read that when we’re younger, our friendships are influenced by so-called life tasks (finishing school, getting a job, raising a family). As we age, we tend to develop more cross-generational friendships. Then come our golden years, which are less about building new friendships than sustaining old ones.
That all strikes me as true, although, if I’m honest, it’s hard to remember back when.
To jog my memory, I once asked my grandson Britton to remind me how young people make friends. Seven years old at the time, here’s what he said:
“Start to know them …and start playing with them. Start talking about yourself. Tell them what you like, and you tell them what you don’t like. They might have something in common. Then they might say, ’Let’s be friends.’”
If only it were always that easy, no?
But that was in 2019, when Britton hung out with a neighbor of ours who happens to be his age. Back then, Britton and Illyana would play for hours, laughing at the same tasteless fart jokes, making You Tube videos of God-awful science experiments, sometimes just trying to escape their younger siblings, who were ‘annoying’.
Jump forward to 2023. Britton and Illyana walk home from the middle-school bus stop on opposite sides of the street. God help them, accidental eye contact might deem them ‘a couple’.
Could anything be more heinous than that?
Granted, Britton still goes over to Illyana’s house, but only to see if her younger brother Camden would like to shoot hoops.
Ah, the complexities of friendship. Always evolving. Often in beautiful strands of rainbow-colored silk. But sometimes in coarse, fickle bunches of scratchy burlap.
Through the years, I’ve experienced more silk than burlap. Lucky me, my friendships have crossed not just generational boundaries but gender and ethnic lines as well.
Some of my most precious friendships continue to be with other women, some met through neighborhood gatherings, church, and work. Others through book clubs or friends of friends—or even my kids.
Who would have guessed my kids’ friends might have moms I like hanging out with? And who would have predicted we’d form a foursome we called our Happy Hour? You know, like the Spice Girls, minus one member. Or maybe the Sex and the City Girls, minus the city. No, make that Thelma and Louise, squared. (Just without that one last crazy ride in the convertible.)
Seems just like that, our Happy Hour has morphed into something more reminiscent of the Golden Girls. I don’t know how or when that happened. I just know that I miss my girlfriends!
These past eight months, I feel like I’ve stood a better chance of finishing a marathon in record time than getting together with my own sweet Golden Girls. I can’t remember the last time all four of us got together. Maybe in 2021? Shoot, even though three out of four of us still live within two miles of one another, out of sixteen attempts to meet up in 2023, only two have worked out. TWO. (Superbowl Sunday with our guys. And an August dinner—again with the guys—for who knows what reason. Maybe because we all had the same open date on our calendar.)
May I make a confession? More than once, I’ve fretted my now Golden Girl friends no longer need me. Or worse, they no longer want to hang out as much. And you know what? Both those things are both probably true. Because long-time friendships don’t just happen. They happen when people grow older. And growing older brings new complexities to the mix, like illnesses—our own, our spouses’, our extended families’. Stomach bugs and vertigo. COVID-exposure and surgeries and physical therapy. And let's not forget crises with extended family and aging parents. Last-minute requests involving the grandkids. Even good things, like time to finally travel, have meant a cutback on our once-upon-a-time frequent gatherings.
But while I miss my friends, I’d hate if you pitied us.
Long-term friends make room for the ebbs and the flows, for those pockets when gatherings become sparse, for whatever reason. True friends make efforts to sustain what they’ve built.
And let me tell you, that takes work. Sometimes it almost seems easier to develop new friendships.
Almost.
As I write this, I’m preparing to attend a writers’ conference in Chicago. I look forward to seeing some new writing friends I met at last year’s conference—and making some even newer friends this year as well. I’m excited. But I’m nervous, too. What if I pack the wrong things to wear and look like a misfit? What if I can’t think of what to say, or worse, blurt out something inappropriate?
I don’t know if anything could be more heinous than that.
But I take comfort in knowing this: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Friendship remains important, no matter our age or stage in life, regardless of our gender or ethnicity. Whether rekindling old friendships or celebrating new ones, what’s not to love about small kindnesses swapped back and forth and over again?
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Updated: Nov 23, 2022
OMGahhhhhh! The 2019 AJC Decatur Book Festival is upon us, and I. AM. GIDDY. Why? Because I love, love, love books.
What kind of books, you ask?
Well..., I like fiction, especially thrillers but also tales that examine contemporary issues or stories that plop a fictional character into an historical event or time or place. Then again, I also enjoy nonfiction, including memoir, true crime, biography, humor, slice-of-life essays, books about writing, travel guides…. You probably get the gist. (Pictured below are some of the recent selections my book club has read.)
The simple truth? At the risk of offending some, I’m what you might call a book slut.
When it comes to books, I can’t seem to get enough. There’s almost always one or two lying in wait on my night stand. But then I’ll hear or read about another recommendation, and temptation will rear its head. I don’t mean to be so fickle, but the library’s minutes down the street, and there’s a bookstore just a bit further. Don’t even remind me of the immediacy of a Kindle purchase. I’m already sunk. You’ve heard of compulsion? Addiction and insatiability? Those words describe me when it comes to books.
As long as I’m already blushing, here are a few more personal admissions.
Confession #1: I suffer from something called bibliosmia. That is the affliction of loving the smell of old books. Only my bibliosmia doesn’t stop with the olfactory sense or with only old books. When it comes to books, I enjoy new ones, too. They can be hard-covered, paperback, geared toward children, oddly shaped or textured, filled with pictures, or plain as slate. There’s just something magical about books. (I found the book below at Target and couldn’t resist getting it for my granddaughter. Isn’t it great?)
Confession #2: The first chapter book I attempted to read was a Nancy Drew mystery that I checked out from the school library in first grade. Granted, for today’s first grader that may not be a huge accomplishment. Seems like today’s first graders are solving algebra problems and tackling 20-word spelling lists. But in my day, first-grade reading assignments evolved around Dick and Jane and their dog Spot, whom they liked to see run. I probably didn’t comprehend great chunks of that first Nancy Drew book, but know this: I carried it between school and home for days, I turned the pages one by one, I poured over the words as best I could, and I fell in love with the mystery genre. To this day.
Confession #3: I’ve never been a literature sophisticate. In high school, I used Cliffs Notes. A lot. My reading comprehension scores were decent enough, but somehow I didn’t always get what I was supposed to glean when reading a classic. Take Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. As a young reader, I thought I knew what the man in the story meant when he recommended the girl have an operation that was “perfectly simple” and “not really an operation at all.” Still, I appreciated confirmation that I was reading about terminating a pregnancy. And I definitely needed help to infer that the white elephants of the title referred not only to cast-off items but to female fertility. Confession #4: I’m not very savvy about poetry either, but I try. My personal teenaged tastes leaned toward Rod McKuen and Susan Polis Schutz. High school and college classes brought on Dickinson, Yates, Stevenson, and Poe. Later still, I read the poetry of Ted Kooser, Rita Dove, and Joe Hutchison, and I started to get it. It may have been Hutchison’s poem, The Artichoke - “O heart weighed down by so many wings” – that convinced me. Confession #5: I love, love, love cookbooks. But I hate, hate, hate to cook. Go figure. Confession #6: I’ve never met a book club I didn’t enjoy...although I think my current club (some of the members pictured below) is my favorite.
The Bad Girls Book Club meets every other month. We’re a melting pot of black, white, biracial, and Asian-Indian women, and our ages range from thirty to sixtysomething. I’m not always sure how I feel about a book I’ve finished until I have time to process it. That’s where the Bad Girls’ discussions come in. Our views will often differ, our voices may even grow loud, but that’s okay. Everyone gets their say about our books’ scenes and characters, outcomes that caught our breath, structure or phrases that appealed or appalled. The loudest voice doesn’t get the prize. All the Bad Girls win, as we continue to listen and learn. About ourselves. And, more importantly, about things much bigger than ourselves. (Below are some more of the books that we’ve been reading.)
Confession #7: Some of the younger Bad Girls have me enjoying something I never thought would be possible: audio books. I know: shut up! My struggle was real enough adapting to Kindle. Yet here we are. Audio books may not smell or feel like the real deal, but they fit in well with today’s busy-ness. While audio books don’t depict words on a page, they allow me to read on the road. With some headphones and an iPhone, I can now enjoy books while tending to house and laundry, prepping meals, weeding the garden, walking...exercising...closing my eyes to relax and listen. I admit, audio books have their upsides. One audio book I’ve enjoyed recently is An American Marriage (hardcover pictured below), narrated by Eisa Davis and Sean Crisden, whose voice is, dare I say, oh, so sensual?
Confession #8: Not only am I a book slut, I’m also a geek over most things bookstore- or author-related. One of my favorite possessions is my female authors umbrella (below left), purchased in the independent Eagle Eye Book Shop tent at the AJC Decatur Book Festival several years ago. And, at the risk of sounding like a stalker (which I’m not, really), I admit I hollered “Stop! Detour!” to Rice as our rental car neared a certain exit on Interstate 95 during our 2017 summer road trip. Yup, I’m one of those people who had to stop for pictures of what is reportedly Stephen King’s house in Bangor, Maine. If it’s not his house, it should be. Just check out that three-headed serpent on the fence post (pictured below right).
Confession #9: It’s a source of delight to me that my children and my grandchildren all seem to love books, too. (Below left, Britton started reading to Charli shortly after she was born in spring 2018.) I don’t take credit for it, but I do feel an extra surge of connection when the boy kicks it to the absolute next level to share his geek side over books (below right).
Confession #10: I’d love it if our paths crossed at the AJC Decatur Book Festival— https://www.decaturbookfestival.com/, Friday, August 30 through Sunday, September 1. It’s one of the largest independent book festivals in the country held each Labor Day weekend in downtown Decatur, Georgia. If you’re not able to make it this year, mark your calendar for another year down the road. It truly is an incredible event.
Take it from me, a self-professed and unabashed book slut.
Cheers…and happy reading! J
Updated: Nov 23, 2022
Betcha didn’t know that February was International Friendship Month. Yeah, yeah, I know, the month that just passed. Still, there’s never a bad time to fit in a call or a hug or a shout-out to someone you care about if you haven’t been good about it lately. Right?
Here are a few interesting facts I read about friendship while surfing the net:
Friendship can extend your life.
Animals can have friends, even beyond their species.
Babies can recognize the emotion of friendship at 9 months of age.
I don’t doubt for a moment the importance of friends in my life. Truth is, though, I’m not always a very good friend myself. Reaching out and staying in touch can be difficult. Lucky for me, I have friends who understand me (they tolerate my introversion). They are better about calling or texting. They keep us in touch.
During February my friend Kathy invited me and two other women to spend a weekend playing at her house. (In this instance, playing means being pampered.) She instigated an overdue gathering of our Happy Hour, a group of four women who met at a neighborhood pool in 1991. Back then we were all Southern transplants suddenly living the lives of stay-at-home moms with young kids. Somehow pool gatherings evolved into Friday afternoon whine-over-wine dates (white Zin, veggies and dip for us; Kool-Aid and Cheetos for the kids). We were there for one another...when our littles stepped on our hands...when our trying teens stomped on our hearts. When our Happy Hour kids celebrated graduations and marriages, we were right there leading the toasts. The most recent jewels in our crowns? Welcoming grands to the Happy Hour fold.
At our recent Happy Hour get-together we enjoyed more upscale wine, private rooms and baths, fresh flowers and peppermint soap, an afternoon of boutique shopping, and a two-hour long dinner out. My friends even played along with my suggestion that we each choose and share a personal word of the year, our theme, so to speak, to help keep us moving forward.
I can’t deny that I miss the long-ago years when I saw my friends more often (and we could party later into the night). Yet I relish our friendship today. Isn’t it magical that an acquaintance can become a friend, and then maybe even a good friend, or perhaps the quintessential intimate friend? Isn’t it healthy for us to allow our friendships to ebb and flow and transform throughout the different stages of our lives?
Having a ton of friends has never been that important to me. Having friends I can trust and strongly connect with has. Knowing I’ve lost connection with friends who’ve meant a great deal to me throughout the years...well, that’s on me. I won’t beat myself up for it, but I’ll try to do better. Each friend has opened up a world in me, whether we’ve crossed paths in school, through our love of art and writing, at church, through family ties, in the ‘hood, at work, during book club, or through myriad other avenues that slip my mind at the moment. I enjoy having friends (or good acquaintances) who are not a mirror image of me but who are of different cultures and different generations.
Speaking of different generations, does anybody really do friendship like a kid?
Given that kids are such experts at friendship and the art of play, I thought I'd ask my almost seven-year-old grandson Britton for a few of his views on friendship. Here's part of our discussion:
Me: “What is a friend?”
Britton: “A friend is someone you play with a lot...or you know a lot about them.”
Me: “What’s a good way to make a friend?”
Britton: “Start to know them …and start playing with them. Start talking about yourself. Tell them what you like, and you tell them what you don’t like. They might have something in common. Then they might say “’Let’s be friends.’”
Me: [trying to come up with a less sterile word for ‘acquaintance’] “What do you call someone who’s not your friend yet but you think they could become one?”
Britton: [thinking....] “Well, first I ask them their name. And when they tell me it, that’s what I call them.”
Me: “Do you think there are different kinds of friends?”
Britton: “Yes. They might have differences like they don’t have anything in common. If I have two friends that aren’t friends, I’ll ask them to see if they’re related somehow. They might have questions, and I’ll see if they like the same type of [TV] show. But it’s okay if it’s not the same. Having differences is okay.”
Me: “What are some words you’d use to describe a good friend?”
Britton: “Funny. Playful. Hilarious. Kind. Strong. Weird. Kind of interesting (knowing a lot of interesting stuff).”
Me: “Do your friends ever drive you crazy?”
Britton: “No. Not that much.”
Me: “Anything else you have to say about friends?”
Britton: “No, I’m all out.”
(Me again here.) Yeah, I know, the month to celebrate friendship is pretty much over. Still, there’s never a bad time to fit in a call or a hug or a shout-out to someone you care about if you haven’t been good about it lately. Even better, won’t you join me in vowing to celebrate our friendships all year long? I mean, friends rock. Don't you agree?
Cheers! J
