female friendships - sheltering trees

Of all the gifts of spirit I envied my sister, none was greater than that of developing & nurturing enduring friendships, especially with women.  I have friends I treasure - am about to head out to Sunday dinner with one - but it feels like mine are occasional friendships, where I see the other person once or twice, if that often, a month.  Mim had friends she talked to every week on the phone, ones she shared letters with on a regular basis, conversations that were decades long.  Distance wasn't even a factor - her longest close friendship was with an Australian pen pal she never met but whose kids always called Mim their "American aunt."

The reality is that I don't know how to do that, to make time - space - room in my life for friendship.  One friend & I have been playing tag for weeks.  It's not just busy lives, it's a cluelessness about how to fit friendship into the nooks & crannies of my life.

This sounds woeful, so please know I feel anything but.  Can say without hesitation that I have always & forever treasured the concept of friendship & have been blessed to have several priceless experiences of it.

The first place where I felt the joys of hanging with friendly souls was in Rosie Bothwell's kitchen, in the brick house at the crook of Alden Road.  From 8th grade to when Rosie moved, I felt welcomed in that warm home, with Fawn & Marty & Deborah & I forget the others.  I felt a sense of belonging, of being free to just be whatever I was.

Had that same feeling on the two or three visits down to Ma Pletcher's.  Went down with one of my Glenn Hall amigos - but which one or ones?  Never went on my own.  Will always remember how welcoming Ma always was, how guys I'd known all my life treated me like a little sister who'd somehow wandered into their midst. Again, I felt free to just kick back & be.

Am forever blessed to have been friends with Dorothy & Susie.  I was 24, they would have been around 26 or 27.  Their friendship - the friendship of the fellas in their lives - transformed me.  My norm became dropping over for a cuppa or kir royale, a long gab.  That was when it first dawned on me that my life was out of whack.  Before Dorothy & Susie, my world revolved around my sister - even at 24, if a fairy godmother had granted my dearest wish, it would have been to be just like my sister.  She was my sun, my moon, my stars.  Pre-Dorothy & Susie, I didn't even see a self of my own.  In my own eyes, I was, at best, a poor reflection of my older sister.  Reflected in their eyes, I saw a different me.  Those times were literally a revelation.  

 

I thought about those times - at Rosie's, at Ma Pletcher's, across the driveway at 2501 Woodland - watching Lily Tomlin & Jane Fonda interviewed as a Ted Talk, dishing out on  the importance of female friendships.   

What pleased me was that I felt no pang of "If only..."  

Reality is my life was not rooted in the sorts of experiences or expectations conducive for hot bedding such tender relationships.  Even today, when opportunities arise, I fumble at making space for them to grow beyond pleasant acquaintanceship.  

The fact is that I am not going to wake up one bright, beautiful morning & find myself Chara or Jane or Heather or anyone else who seem to have been kissed at birth by some friendship fairy, bestowing the grace of being & having long term, even lifelong deep & deepening relationships.  

The mail box is not going to start sprouting notes & letters - will continue to be a steady stream of bills & flyers & Amazon packages.

What has happened over the past few weeks, especially the past two, is that I am newly appreciative of the friendships I've had in the past, the ones I cherish in this here & now & enjoy in my distinctive style, look forward to whatever will come, sure that friendships will always be part of my life ~and~ that ones grounded in sharing a Sunday lunch or a rare breakfast, an occasional visit or a long overdue letter, are & will be as precious to me as anything that came before or is just ahead.  


Stepping away from what I imagined friendship is supposed to look like, appreciating all I have, all the women (and men) who touch my life with their friendship, affection & caring, it is a joy to know in my heart, in the very fiber of my being, that friendship IS a sheltering tree, that I sit under branches that offer comfort & caring.