Day Thirty-Two: Friendship

Word of the Day: Friendship

Image of the Day: Pookie on the Downie

Token of the Day: keyring of crystals and bells

Gail writes: Friendship comes in many forms,
many shapes and in many colours. May you know and recognise her in all of her guises

So many types, so essential, so difficult at times, so comforting and fun and enriching and...

One of the books i'm reading just now is "The Philosophy of Friendship". Marjorie and i were discussing friendship, the highs and lows, how to navigate through them, when to fight for and when to let go... Then she told me about this book which she had read as her Lent book the previous year. It was on her shelves so she said "Why don't you just take it? I'm not going to read it again." Friendship in a nutshell - giving without expectation of return!

There is a Peanuts cartoon image in my mind. I think it's Snoopy and Woodstock facing each other one with a bat and one with a glove at the end of a baseball game, the caption reads "Let's Be Friends". Once the game is over, the rivalry and competition fades into the background and friendship takes the throne once again.

Quakers are known as Friends (the Religious Society of Friends). The name comes from Jesus' remark "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (John 15:14). We are called to be friends with God, not simply children, or wrestlers, or sheep but FRIENDS.

What does it mean to be a friend? The word is linked with love (Latin amicus, its meaning in Old English, being literally love. It is also linked with peace (Frith, Friede - Siegfried meaning victory peace, Frederick peaceful ruler) and our word Friday is from Day of Frigg/Venus - Goddess of love.

We give and receive friendship rings and bracelets, reconnect through Friends Reunited, write on each other's Facebook walls, text and Skype. Thanks to these modern inventions distance can be covered instantly enabling friendships to endure across vast distances. But i have friends in my life who i can be completely out of touch with for months and even years and we can still pick up where we left off. Despite great differences and beyond the capacity of lovers, marriages, contracts friendship thrives.

We can be friendly with work colleagues but should we be friends? Once again i think linguistics can get in the way of true meaning. Being friendly can imply intimacy or simple pleasantries. And how do we maintain healthy boundaries? Answers on a postcard please!

Friendship involves loving and liking, seeking one another out, enjoying each other's company whether weeping over a movie, laughing at a TV show or walking silently through the landscape. A good friend becomes part of the family. And it will take a monumental issue to tear up tht contract. It has happened to me... Once it was repaired and is now more solid than ever. But with another i doubt it will ever be truly healed. And that grieves me.

The bond i have with my cat, Pookie is one built over 14 years since he arrived in my life as an 18 month-old terrified scrap. He is my familiar, my shadow, my "daemon" in Philip Pullman's language. He curls up with me when i'm poorly or upset; he nags me if i don't go to bed when he thinks i should. And in return i feed him, see to his litter-tray, give him shelter. We give each other love and companionship.

Each friendship is unique, not to be compared but to be treasured, enjoyed, appreciated, respected.

I don't have a group of friends who i go out with. When i drank i would be out with others but they weren't friends, simply drinking buddies. I never have been part of a group, wasn't in a gang of friends at school. I've tended, i think, to have a special friend and not managed too well negotiating other friendships at the same time. I love watching "Friends", "Sex and the City", loved watching and reading "The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood" and "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Cafe" but i'm beginning to accept that actually i am not that sort of person. People think of me as gregarious, extrovert because i'll chat to anyone i come across. I am told that i'm a good listener, i definitely don't like to appear rude, don't like to see someone on their own, rejected. I am not generally at ease with people, something i used to mask with alcohol. I am terrified of rejection, of getting it wrong, and i am unclear about the rules, the unwritten code of being a friend. Yet i do have friends, scattered around the world in Australia, Canada, USA as well as around the UK. These are individuals who have known me in my darkest times and have stayed the course. For me, friends are those individuals who forgive and who can accept forgiveness, who get things wrong and who can accept my mistakes.

Friends hold strands of my soul and they never let go; their fingerprints are embedded in my heart; and no matter the number of miles that separate us, they are with me in an instant when i need them - in word, gesture, gift, Skype, text, email, and in healing.

Thank you friends - Alison, Kate, Alex, Marjorie, Kerri, Marian, among others.

Most of all, thank you Gail, passionate friend and companion on the way.