Friendshipping

On loving and letting go.

By Socrates’ standard I have failed, ‘Be slow to fall in friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.’ I was one of those fools who rushed in. Who fell hard. When a girl was nice to me on the school bus, I gave her my entire stash of fruit salad sweets - 400 in a box. I did the equivalent as a 40-year-old woman arriving in Sligo and had the same bitch-slap Amanda gave me when she sold my sweets for 10p each in the playground. I may have finally learned my lesson.

I am not alone in this midlife relationship evaluation.

‘Friendships come and friendships go
Some we miss and some we don't.’

That’s Biffy Clyro.

I recently read Andrew O’Hagan’s moving collection On Friendship where he details significant relationships and the impact they have had on his life. He writes that his friend Mark was, ‘like a cool glass of water after a fever.’ I also heard Alain de Botton encouraging people to invite a friend over to do laundry rather than meet for coffee. He said closeness is borne from activity: cramming for exams, travelling, new babies. At my life stage we’re more likely to close the front door on our chaos and present polished versions of our lives. To sit still together.

I have a later-in-life friend who ran a Woman’s Circle with me. We were strangers at the outset but the mild peril of curating a gathering every six weeks left us head over heels; I cannot imagine my life without her.

‘We don’t bond by being perfect - we bond through effort, mishap and doing small, real things together.’ - Alain de Botton

I have a friend who is my neighbour. At least once a week we swim in the lake. It takes five to ten minutes to walk to the water (depending on how slowly we take it) and the same to walk back. I talk on the down hill, we swim, she talks on the return. It is a rhythm, a small, real thing, and it keeps us in step while parenting teenagers.

I have a friend who taught me how to breathe in nine dimensions.

I have a friend who is scared of spiders. When an orb weaver moved into the laundry room I took photos. ‘Look how beautiful she is,’ I texted. ‘You will never convince me. Never.’ It is one of many things about which we disagree.

I have three friends who have known me from the start. We are the scattered seeds of the same tree. We pool resources beneath the soil. They are also my siblings.

I have friends from Croatia. When we met last week a man at the next table asked if we were related (we look nothing alike). When we said no, he was shocked. ‘It was the way you hugged one another,’ he said. ‘I assumed you were family.’

I have a friend who got her driver’s license six months before me. She picked me up in the evenings and we drove to dead end roads to dance in front of the headlights. I loved being with her. When I dance I feel as though she is with me.

***

I have a friend I met when I was 10-years-old. We picked cowries from the tideline and ran wild in a sandy Donegal caravan park. Last weekend we got all dressed up to share a stage. Before we began she took my hand and I told her that our younger selves would be pretty chuffed with us.

As she talked about her life, her work, her passions, I basked. I thought of things that radiate, like the sun in our earliest shared memories. I thought of Mars Bar ice creams; how I ate two in a row then vomited. The decadence of young love. It tastes different now. I watched her fill choux buns in the heat of her sun-soaked basement kitchen and it spoke to me of slow food. The slow fall of friendship. It is deliberate. Imperfect. A ferment.

Ciara in Ursa Minor making her version of chocolate profiteroles.

And what of the friendships that go?

I had a friend who skipped classes with me in secondary school and we kept one another afloat.

I had a friend I loved so much I asked him if we should get married. He said, ‘No’ and I was relieved.

I had a friend who bought me perfume called Flower Bomb. It smelled like strawberry laces and that one, hot moment of apple blossom in spring. So vivacious. When I visited her home there was an atmosphere of severity and I knew it was something to do with religion. I could never marry those two things.

I had a friend who pressed me for my theology on homosexuality then never spoke to me again. It broke my heart and changed my theology.

I had a friend I thought would always be my friend but there was not room enough for both of us.

I had a friend who held me when I was lonely. It was a field with a river along its border and a fox den in the hedge.

I had a friend who was a honeybee and she stung me. I have forgiven her; I hope she has forgiven me.

I am practising the slow burn of friendship and it is really paying off. The key, I think, is to be a friend to myself first. I take myself for walks; I read aloud when I am in need of comfort; I write letters every morning - feelings, beliefs, opinions - for my eyes only; I put music on and dance like I am possessed (a friend taught me that); I take responsibility for my life.

***

I want to commend my friend Ciara Ó hArtghaile, the one with whom I shared a stage on Friday night. She lives like a seasonally-attuned creature, a hazel for example - rooted, native to this land, a subtle bloomer, place of shelter and an abundant source of sustenance. What she, her husband and their incredible team have built in Ballycastle is nothing short of a miracle. It’s precisely the messy, lip-smacking, gregarious force of good our world needs.

Yarn Ballycastle: workshop; bed I didn't want to get out of; garden views.

While I’m at it, I’ll tell you about Susanna, the woman across the street who renovated an old bank into an arts venue called Yarn. I taught a workshop there on Saturday, stayed overnight in one of the upstairs apartments and danced into the wee hours where the tellers once worked. If you’re looking for a line up of interesting events, live music, workshops or a chance to improve your cookery skills, look no further!

Aristotle said friendship was a slow ripening fruit and this weekend I enjoyed the hot sun and rain squalls that make for timely maturation.

I have told you about my friends. Now, tell me about yours…