--WITH ONLY A WHISPER THE MOUNTAINS SHAKE
The Thing About Friendships
Is meaningful ones can be hard to
come by, and they take work if they are to remain meaningful for any extended
period of time.
Me, I live in the boondocks.
On a lake. There are eagles and beavers. Lots of trees.
Deer. It’s beautiful here, but it’s also very rural and, for the most
part, pretty redneck (My wife hates when I say that, yet as an example, for a
few consecutive years there was a guy who would drive his boat around with a Confederate Flag billowing from it. True
story. And our lake is a fairly small one, so that dude definitely got
the attention he was craving).
What we have an uncommon amount of
in these parts are trucks. Trucks the size of combines. The size of
dinosaurs. Huge, black-smoke chugging things you need a ladder to get
into. (I always assume it’s because the owners of said vehicles have
small penises, so they’re overcompensating, but I have no proof of that
claim.) One such monster truck was covered in bumper stickers. One
read WELCOME TO AMERICA. NOW SPEAK ENGLISH. Right next to it was
another reading YOUR PRIUS IS FAGGING UP MY OZONE. (Another true story.).
I mean, where do you even get a bumper sticker like that?
I’m making a generalization about
where I live. There are lots of nice, wonderful people here, some that
even own cars and lap dogs instead of pitbulls. But for the most part,
the men here like manly things. They love tinkering in the garage.
They hunt. The know construction and automotive stuff. They can fix
things. All of this is well and good, but none of it is anything that
appeals to me, and none of it is anything I’m good at. I still couldn’t
tell you what a carburetor is or where to find it if you offered me a million
bucks. Once, after coming out of a restaurant, I found my car wouldn’t
start. My son said, “Pop the hood.” I said, “Why?” He said, “That’s
what you’re supposed to do.” So, I popped the hood, took a peak in and
said, “You good now?” and promptly closed it.
This is all to say it’s hard to
make friends with people you have little to nothing in common with.
There’s nothing to talk about. It’s like an Italian speaking person
trying to converse with an Egyptian. Trust me, I’ve tried. For a
good year my wife arranged blind dates for me with various husbands of her
various friends. If you tell me Obama is a Muslim, well, that date’s over
before it even starts.
For most people, friendships are
made in college where you’re surrounded by thousands of fairly like-minded
people. After that, the workplace is another bastion where friendships
have a reasonable potential of blooming.
But when you’re fifty-something and
work from home, like moi, well you’re kind of screwed. There’s only so
much you can talk to the dog about before the pooch starts looking at you like
you’ve snorted too much meth.
This is not to say I don’t have
friends. I do. In fact, I have some incredible friends in my
life. The problem is, they all live far away. A couple of years
ago, I decided to take stock of the most important friends in my life.
Some who weren’t so important I decided to let go of since really we were just acquaintances
any way. For the others, I decided I was going to be the best possible
friend I could be. Now I drive or fly to them, or we meet somewhere in
the middle of the country. We text regularly. We send photos and
goofy (sometimes raunchy, though not explicit) videos. Sometimes we
actually speak on the phone.
Just this last week I had dinner
three nights in a row with three of my best friends. In less than a week
I’ll be driving to Portland to see my best friend of forty years, who was also
my Best Man, and me his. In November I’m flying to NYC for a reading, but
really it’s to see three of my favorite people on the planet. This
galivanting has been happening all year, and every occasion has been an
absolute blast, filled with belly laughter and joy.
This is all to say that friendships
require not only time and energy, but intentionality. My friends are some
of the most important people in my life. Their faces have been popping up
as I’ve been writing this. I’d do anything for them. Take a
bullet? Maybe if I was wearing Kevlar. Everything else? You
bet. That’s what friends are for.
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