Tag Archives: friendship

Reverb10: Friendship

16 Dec

The inimitable Gwen Bell and two cohorts started a month-long initiative to reflect on 2010 called Reverb10. Each day one person contributed a prompt for bloggers to jump off from. And today was my prompt. So I thought maybe I should, you know, also reflect upon it. :)

December 16 – Friendship How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

Whenever I encounter the question “What couldn’t you live without?” my answer is my friends. And I’ve been very lucky in my friendships. I’m still friends with the girl who was my very first friend. (Our moms became friends when they were pregnant with us, and her birthday is almost exactly one month after mine, so we have known each other our whole lives.) I’m still friends with the girl who would come to my house after preschool till her mom got off work when we were three. (We also took ballet together until we were in middle school.) I’m still friends with my clan from high school. I’m still friends with my crew from college. And I have made so many friends in this New York part of my life, too, both within the publishing industry and outside of it. And when I say I’m friends with all of these people, I mean really friends, not just casual acquaintances who still keep in touch occasionally. They are my people; the ones who have been beside me in both the worst and best times of my life; the ones who I will stand beside through anything that happens to them. No matter what. Because once people matter to me, they matter forever. I get attached, and I’m incredibly loyal, and I can’t ever stop caring about people. So my friends are stuck with me. I think they’re okay with that.

But that’s not really what the prompt asks. It asks specifically about this year. And in this year, I have been constantly blown away by how we all can change and grow and yet stay connected and never lose ourselves.

Suddenly, I’ve hit the time in my life when my friends are getting married and having babies. Three of four of my high school girls have all had children in the past year and a half. How odd to be the parents when we all hang out rather than the kids! Everything has changed . . . and yet nothing has changed either. We’re all still the same girls we were at sixteen hanging out in our own parents’ basements, watching scary movies and over-analyzing the boys we had crushes on.

 

Sadly, I don't have any high school pictures of us scanned (yet), but this one's a few years old. It'll have to do.

And one of my best friends from college got married over the summer, which meant I got to see a big bunch of my college people all at once. Again, so much has changed, and yet, we’re all just as comfortable and ridiculous with each other as we always were. It was like no time at all had passed in the nine years since we all saw each other every day. And this new guy, whom my friend loves and who loves her just as much as we all do, was instantly part of the circle from the very first moment we all met him.

It makes me laugh every time.

These are just two call-outs of so many I could choose from. I hope that every single one of my friends knows how important they have been to me in 2010 and how much they make me look forward to 2011.

So. Now you know why I’m always saying that I love books with strong friendships in them, too.

Belonging

13 Feb

A couple of weeks ago, I got to learn and participate a little in an African drum circle. Which isn’t something I would have ever sought out myself, probably, but I’m really glad the opportunity came my way. The man leading us made sure we understood that a drum circle is just that–a circle, a community. You can’t just take a drum and go off in a corner by yourself (because that would clearly annoy your neighbors pretty quickly); you have to be with a group, practicing a rhythm and beat together. It’s about belonging to something larger than yourself, and connection.

The African word he taught us is “ubuntu.” Which, as he explained it, means: I am me because of you, and you are you because of me. So simple, and yet . . . not. In a time of year when ads want us to believe that love and connection can be shown with things–things as superficial as a mass-produced necklace or an overused saying–I think ubuntu stands out as even more real and solid. A day, a life, has meaning because of the people who are connected to it and to us. The memories, traditions, gestures, and affections.

I am me because of the writers who have shared their stories with me; because of my family and friends; because of my teachers and mentors; because of the people who have loved me, and the people who have hurt me; the people who are here, and the ones who’ve gone; the ones near and those far; those I’ve known forever and those I’ve known only briefly.

One of the other things being part of a drum circle, even for only a few minutes, highlighted is that I have absolutely no rhythm. (Which isn’t a new discovery at all.) Think about it too much, and I completely lose the rhythm of drumming (or dancing or clapping or . . . well, anything). But if I stop thinking, and just listen to everyone around me, I can totally stay with them. With them, I can find the beat. Ubuntu.

Top Ten TV Couples

21 Nov

Angie posted this meme earlier this week, and how could I resist? Compile a list of your top 10 favorite TV couples to share. These are in no particular order.

1. Josh & Donna, The West Wing

2. CJ & Danny, The West Wing

3. Bartlet & Abby, The West Wing

What West Wing fan didn’t feel all warm and fuzzy when Josh and Donna finally became a couple? I love watching the banter, the way they know each other so well, and the way neither lets the other get away with any crap. They can make each other laugh, and they are always there when needed. Josh is brilliant but arrogant, and a good friend; Donna is gullible yet savvy, smart, and can see right through him. A good tv couple, in my opinion, has loads of tension and what-if build-up. And two characters who challenge and complement each other.

And that’s why two more of my favorite couples also come from West Wing. CJ and Danny circle each other more obviously, maybe, than Josh and Donna, but the connection is still complex. And they are still two smart and funny people who get each other.

Then there’s the President and First Lady. Some of the best scenes in the show are when they’re fed up and yelling at each other, because it shows a strong relationship many years in, and with many problems and strains. They push each others buttons, but they, too, know that underneath everything is support and strength.

4. Veronica and Logan, Veronica Mars


This clip says it all, doesn’t it? Epic, volatile, dangerous, yet also vulnerable and sweet.

5. Rory & Jess, Gilmore Girls

Jess might be my favorite tv bad boy. He’s always been my favorite of Rory’s boys. He’s smart and is a reader, so can meet her on an intellectual level, but he challenges her goody-goody nature. And he just always kept coming back. In my mind, at the end of Gilmore Girls, Rory went off with Obama’s campaign, saw Jess during a stop in Philly, and they live happily ever after.

6. Ally McBeal & Larry, Ally McBeal

The favorite TV couple from the college years. Robert Downey, Jr. playing Larry completely won the hearts of me and my roommate. He and Ally are just so adorably crazy, in such compatible ways.

7. Scarecrow & Mrs. King, Scarecrow & Mrs. King

How can you not love an ’80s spy couple?

8. Roger & Joan, Mad Men

They’re funny, they’re challenging to each other, and they always know where the other stands. And who doesn’t love Joan?

Bromances. Sometimes the best couples are friendships rather than romances.

9. Seth & Ryan, The O. C.

I never really watched much of The O. C. because I couldn’t stand the girls. But every once and a while I’d turn it on and would be totally charmed by the friendship between Seth and Ryan. They’re hilarious, and such terrific friends.

10. Stefan & Damon, The Vampire Diaries

They so often make me laugh! I think their banter may be one of the main reasons I have gotten so into this show.

With a Little Help from My Friends

21 Sep

“A friend is one who walks in when everyone else walks out.”

“Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power, or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.”

“Wherever you are, it is your friends who make your world.”

“A best friend, in my opinion, is someone who you can be foolish in front of, you know, be yourself.”

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can hope to find in our travels is an honest friend.” -Robert Louis Stevenson

” ‘You have been my friends,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.’” –E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise.” –Samuel Johnson

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” –Aristotle

“The greatest happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved–loved for ourselves, or rather, in spite of ourselves.” –Victor Hugo

“Friends may change and friendships evolve, but they never truly end because they are not merely the destinations of a passing moment but the journeys of a lifetime.”

“A friend is a person who reaches for your hand and touches your soul.”

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”

“There are not many things in life so beautiful as true friendship, and not many things more uncommon.”

“I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.” –Walt Whitman

“The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.” –Edward Everett Hale

“I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When the are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.” –Emerson

“Nothing makes the earth seems so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and the longitudes.” –Thoreau

“It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” –Marlene Dietrich

“My God, this is a hell of a job. I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my goddamn friends. They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor at night.” –Warren G. Harding

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” –Bernard Meltzer

“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friends, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” –E. M. Forster

“Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other’s little failings.” –Jean de la Bruyere

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” –Mohammed Ali

“The most beautiful discover true friends can make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.”

“People say true friends must always hold hands, but true friends don’t need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there.”

“Friendship is certainly the balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” –Jane Austen

“Meaning that if someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don’t change because of it. It’s just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it.” –Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“It struck her that she was very lucky in her life’s people.” –Kristin Cashore, Fire

Thanksgiving

27 Nov

I am thankful that I woke up to the smell of the turkey cooking; that both of my siblings and I were all able to come home for the holiday; that we still put the Macy’s parade on while we make coffee and help around the kitchen and generally putz around; that everyone still stops for a minute when Santa comes at the end; that my cousins and their kids joined us; that we sit around, talking and listening to each other; that Thanksgiving is a day to slow down and catch up with life; that my parents’ home is a warm, inviting place full of life shining in a dark, snowy, starry night.

I am thankful for a job that I believe affects people and makes the world better; that I help to bring kids and teens the kinds of stories that will stick with them and help them figure out life, choice, love, school, friendship, independence, and so many other things; that I get to know and work with awe-inspiring, creative people; that what I do is all about connection.

I am thankful for amazing friends who are funny, smart, passionate, giving, strong, and generally incredible people.

I am thankful.

Sharing Books

14 Nov

One of my favorite quotes, the one that embodies so eloquently and deeply not only what books mean to me, but what they mean to my relationships with other people, is from a poem by W. B. Yeats: “I bring you with reverent hands / the books of my numberless dreams.”* (From “A Poet to His Beloved”) I can’t imagine any vow or promise carrying more significance than the sentiment that line expresses.

Books are so easily shared, yet are so tremendously personal. The person I am, the way I think, the way I approach life, have all been shaped by the books that I have read. I’ve never been able to name “the book that changed my life” because every book has changed my life. The ones that I love are more than just objects on a shelf (or mp3s on my ipod). They hold parts of me inside of them. In their pages, they hold the places, the thoughts, the people, the smells, sounds, emotions that surrounded me as I read. Often rereading can take me back to the time and place of that previous read, can remind me more sharply of particular moments or feelings than anything else can.

And so, sharing books, even sharing thoughts about books, can be a very intimate act, when it comes right down to it. I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve been collecting quotes since I was in high school. In blank books, I write down lines and passages from books or articles or that I just stumble across somewhere. I sometimes think that giving someone those quote books to read would reveal more about me than giving them the journals that I’ve kept in the last 15 years. In them are the ideas that I identified with, agreed with, found funny, found moving, disagreed with but found thought-provoking–and how I’ve grown in my thoughts about everything over the years (even if I am still mostly reading books for the YA audience). I love sharing books with people, I love the sense that I am saying, essentially, “Here is something that got inside my head, and I hope it gets inside yours, too, and let’s talk about it once you read it.”

Everything we read affects our minds somehow, and being able to share something that affects your mind is pretty remarkable. Being able to have a conversation with another person about how that book affected you, what it made you think, is exciting. Maybe the person I share with won’t pick up on the exact same themes or passages that I did, but regardless, we’ll still both have that book, that story, inside of us. This feeling about books may be part of why I have an enormous to-read list. Because every time a friend tells me about a book they’ve loved or found interesting, I want to read it, too, to understand something that’s now a part of that person I care about.

My library doesn’t contains just stories and worlds and beautiful writing. It contains memories, emotions, thoughts. . . . The books that I keep, the ones I’ve connected to and identified with and found valuable enough to cart with me from apartment to apartment, to make sure I have the space for . . . well, I’m attached to them. Lots of times I’ve actually scribbled notes in them and marked the passages I later transcribed in my quote books. They’re little parts of my mind. My numberless dreams.

* Thanks, Angie, who introduced me to this quote. (In fact, is this quote part of the reason we became friends? Apart from our mutual literary crush on George Cooper? (And other mutual literary crushes.))

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