Friendship

I saw a French film this evening called "My Best Friend" - thanks to Spencer's excellent recommendation. It was a gentle black comedy about a middle-aged man who has no friends and is told this by his female business partner. He is stunned by this statement because he thinks that his busy life is full of friends - his appointment book is full, he says. She points out that these are business contacts and not friends. He doesn't know what she is talking about and insists that he has a best friend - which he doesn't. She challenges him to come up with one by the end of the month - ten days away. They make a large wager and so starts his search - and the film.

I came out of the theatre thinking about what a rare and wonderful thing friendship is. It isn't really something you can orchestrate. Acquaintanceships and contacts can be engineered but even those are better when there is some serendipity involved.

I can remember meeting all my significant friends. I know what they were doing, what I was doing and what the scene was, at the instant of meeting. It's like a snapshot in my head that I can go back and look at. All my friends are different and unique. None could ever be exchanged for another. Each brings a precious point of view, way of being, talent, disposition and sense of humour, and timing.

Not all of my friendships have lasted a long time but that doesn't make them any less precious to me. They're all from different age groups and cultures. I like them because they are not like me. Sure, their values are similar, but they teach me and stretch me to see things from another point of view.

Fleur and I were in the car a little while ago, before Geoff died, and she said to me that she's surprised by our friendship because it's unlikely. We have very different interests and careers, friends, backgrounds, even daily rhythms. In the normal run of things, we might never have met. It was Aidan who was instrumental in bringing us together.

I met Julie in a class in high school, Janet when I read her name on her trunk in the hallway in our first residence at university, Zoe at a talk in her living room in Jerusalem, Ruth in a little village in Scotland, Spencer at Nori's Christmas party in her garage, Nori at a local cafe on the Drive, Lynne on the day I had an interview for a part-time job at a local college here in Vancouver, Claudia when she came to me for a reading in North Vancouver when I was recommended to her by another friend, and Marigold ... well I didn't need an introduction.

And that's all of you reading this blog, as far as I know, and whomever else you share it with. I was saying to Behzad today, when he was saying that he has friends spread all over the world, that it's like a web. You can tug on one strand in one corner and the tug is felt all through the web. We all take a little bit of one another wherever we go and whatever we do. I'm much more aware of how all of you affect me than I am of how I affect you. Maybe friendship is like that.

How we make friends and how we keep them takes some practical skill and it's also an odd alchemical process, as evidenced by the fact that sometimes you can do all the 'right' things and the friendship doesn't gel. The same as with lovers; there has to be a little je-ne-sais-quoi or it's not special. I like that.

Vive mes amis!