#24 The Magic of Friends
"Books! and cleverness? There are more important things — friendship and bravery." — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
In 2019, Jenny and Rose started writing to each other about creativity, sobriety, and relationships. This year, we’re inviting you to pull up a chair and join our (very human, always AI-free) correspondence.
I cheered and laughed through your story about your Turkish penpal. You reminded me of the delight of real letters, their personality and charm and longevity. Was I disappointed that your penpal didn’t turn into an international love affair? Maybe in a Hollywood sort of way, but I am lucky to know that romance is not the only form of magic.
You asked me if I have a friendship story that rises above the rest. Yes, I do.
I’ll call her O. She’s tall with fabulous curly hair. We met in the hallway outside Anthropology 101 on our first day of college. We were waiting for class to start, feeling very much like kindergartners in adult bodies. She said she worked at a bookstore, so I liked her. After we shuffled into class, I was paired with another student to introduce myself. I spent the whole conversation nodding blankly at my classmate, straining to hear O’s conversation instead.
It’s been almost thirteen years since that day. It’s impossible to summarize how much she means to me (letters are powerful but occasionally inadequate). I could try with numbers: we’ve given each other 13 Christmas gifts (my favorite: a Gryffindor scarf she knitted), sent approximately 3,600 Good morning! texts, driven 8,500+ miles across several road trips, sent megabytes of texts about our spiritual lives, mailed a few feet of cards and letters, and listened to an unholy number of hours of Harry Potter on audio together.
O has a foxhound’s nose for emotional nuance, which she uses to make the world softer for others. Once, she was the only person who noticed a stranger crying outside a concert; she sat on the sidewalk with the woman and talked with her for half an hour. Where I can mistake compassion for people pleasing, O has inherited a single-minded and spirited sense of justice. She once flew out of my house in a rage when she heard teenagers taunting a bus driver through the open windows. In her words: I wouldn’t stand for it. One year, a crappy ex-boyfriend tried to win me back with flowers. She took me on a walk, and we handed the daisies to strangers.
She can be straightforward about her emotions yet feels things deeply. She prefers never to respond to the question how are you until she’s had 3-5 business days for the answer to bubble up. She downgrades all authority figures to their rightful status as regular people, but she fangirls hard over Mumford and Sons. She can visualize the perfect metaphor to summarize a relationship and the right way to assemble IKEA furniture with a fluency I find astounding. The trim on her house is yellow because white is boring, and she painted stars on her ceiling. She has the most vivid mind I’ve ever met.
Somehow, O has stuck with me despite the ways I hurt her when I was drunk, hungry, or worst of all, simply selfish. The first time I was upset with my partner, M, I texted her, How did you manage to forgive me after some of the things I’ve done? She responded, I knew that in ten years, I’d still want to be friends with you. Then she dissected the types and methods of forgiveness with me for hours.
Our friendship is also a testament to thirteen years of humor: I still laugh in public when I remember the time she pointed at a man pushing an empty tricycle and said, What a shame, his kid is invisible. We are constitutionally incapable of being quiet together, unless the sunset is good. We’ve spent many nights in our folding chairs, chatting in hushed tones while we watched the sun go down or the fireflies glitter in the fields behind my house.
Our partners — the ones who’ve stuck around — embrace that O and I are each other’s long-term plans. I recently lifted my head off the pillow to notice M staring at the ceiling. I asked him what he was thinking about. He responded, We’re going to need a big property for my recording studio, your workshop, and O’s tiny house.
There is a moment from our first year of friendship that doesn’t summarize O, but it captures something essential.
She was sleeping over at my house. In the middle of the night, she got up for the bathroom. When she came back, she accidentally nudged my foot. I woke up, couldn’t remember where I was, and saw a TALL figure over me.
I shrieked. Screamed bloody murder.
Rose, O said calmly and softly. It’s me.
The sleep dissipated, and I remembered where I was and who I was with. Oh. We laughed, and my heart rate slowed.
I think of that moment often. Rose, it’s me. In my half-sleep state, the world was scary, complex, threatening. But when I knew O was in it, it felt safer.
P.S. Tell me more about some of the friends you made on vacation?
Rose, what a beautiful, deep dive into the sustaining power of a friendship. "O has a foxhound's nose for emotional nuance, which she uses to make the world softer for others." Wow. Talk about a life well lived.