To my dear friend in need

In the cathedral
Or along a forest path

My thoughts are with you. 

The power of friendship

Years and years ago, I had a dream that haunted me for a long time. In the dream, I was standing before a tribunal, having to prove my mental competency. I stood there shaking with an ominous feeling that I was failing to prove I could care for myself.

The judges said I was to show them my bank book. (Yes, there were bank books then.) So, I handed over my bank book, and when one of the judges opened the book, instead of columns of deposited money, there was a list of names—my friends.

I remember their looks of disbelief. Even though I knew I had failed in their eyes, seeing the list of friends made me happy.

Listening to this wonderful interview above. The dream whooshed back into my thoughts. 

So, for all of you, my dear friends, I thank you so dearly for giving me so much joy and happiness and things money can't buy. To a long life!

Thank you, to friends who travel afar

Japanese teapot

Steam rising from curved belly

Gift from a dear friend.

Mediation Weekend

Wandering out into the garden in the early morning hours... to catch the threads of spider webs on my face, the drone of the bees amongst the apple blossoms, and the droplets of dew on the edge of my pantlegs.

A Friend Drops By

A friend living on the northern tip of Denmark was travelling today on a train through Germany. She decided spontaneously to get off the train in Luebeck and make a pit stop visit. We met for lunch. Had a lovely chat. She then got on the next train heading north. I went back to my office with a smile on my face and a warm feeling in my heart. A sunny day in more ways than one.

Friends Indeed

I’ve just came back from a trip down south to visit with friends. These are women I have known for over twenty-five years. Even though I moved away twenty years ago, we remain in contact and, more importantly, we remain connected. Every time I go back, I am a washed with the familiarity and the steadfastness of my friends’ lives. Yet, as you can imagine, much changes: small children grow into adult, new jobs or recent retirement, old dreams gone by the wayside, and new travel plans, etc. Mostly, I am just thankful for the warm welcome and the conversations that leave my head spinning, so that I spent a good part of the train journey home, just thinking about what was said and what was left unsaid.

Getting Unstuck

“ … I want to show you that the creative impulse is quiet, quiet. It sees, it feels, it quietly hears: and now, in the present… It is when you are really living in the present that you are living spiritually, with the imagination.”

Brenda Ueland, If You Want To Write

A friend of mine has become stuck halfway through writing a novel. The story so far is very good. I can’t wait to find out what happens next. Since she’s temporarily stuck, and also unwilling to tell me what happens, I wait impatiently for her to continue.

She says she wants me to be a cheerleader. I’m a lousy cheerleader. In fact, I (so unkindly) have always hated cheer leading and cheerleaders. I have a phobia about pompoms.

What I really would like to do is, shake her by her shoulders and yell at her to “get on with it”. I have to know what happens next. I have to know what the main characters say, or do, or experience. Selfishly, I fail to understand completely why my friend has, at the point in time, chosen to have this crisis. Can’t she see there is a story waiting to be told?

Can’t she just jump over all of this internal uncertainty, the barrage of family obligations, her pursuit of living a balanced life (ha, who manages such a thing anyways?), and sit down and concentrate and write the rest of the story, so that I can finally read more? I want her to write and write and write, so that I never have to stop reading. I want to live close by her characters for a long time to come.

So, as a means to an end, sigh, I am on my way out the door to buy some pompoms. I’ve already made up some silly rhyming cheers. My desperation knows no bounds.

Letting Light In

There are times when a crack in the heavy curtain of daily monotony lets light in and past memories shine with a radiance long forgotten. It was a lovely day today. Perhaps, the gods willing, I might have met a new friend.

I also met with an old friend, who shares many years of history with my family and me. I sat in her kitchen, as she tried to pry me with three homemade cakes. Her grown son just returned from a half a year, half way around the planet. She looks so happy to have him back safe and sound.

I don’t know if it is the season for the frangipani trees to blossom. Maybe a bit early, but this collage is in celebration for all that is simple.

The Children of Friends

There are certain taboo topics between friends. Topics, near-and-dear to our hearts, which are difficult to introduce into our conversations, easily misconstrued, and often avoided. Anything to do with child rearing is one. Another is, the ease or awkwardness of our children’s struggles through various development phases. The biggest though, which is almost impossible to discuss, is what do you do when you don’t like a friend’s child or when their child’s behaviour is so unacceptable, you don’t really feel comfortable in the child’s company?

In my experience, it is hard to hold onto a friendship or develop a new one, if the friend has a child, or children, you find unsympathetic. A friendship might survive a husband or wife you don’t particularly like, but not a son or daughter.

This weekend, I met the children of a friend of mine. We’ve only developed a friendship in the last year and, even though I met her in person before, I had not met her children until now. She has great kids. Thank heavens! Halleluiah!

I didn’t realise how nervous I was to meet her children, until after I’d met them and realised they were bright, funny, quirky, mischievous little munchkins. And, then a wave of relief washed over me.

Last summer, I met a woman that I quite liked. She is a very interesting person. She has a very different personality to my own. Lives a very different lifestyle. In hindsight, it probably is all these differences that make her interesting to me. She is a kind, gentle, intelligent woman, in an Annie Hall sort of way.

When I went to her apartment the first time and met her three boys, I nearly did an about-turn inside of the first half-hour of the visit. The boys behaved loudly, disrespectfully, jealously, aggressively, and showed a collective meanness of spirit. I was thrown off-balance.

The contrast between her gently nature and the boys’ persistent aggressive behaviour was starling. It made me wonder whether my first impression of her, my assessment of her qualities were wrong.

Once this thought popped up in my mind, I couldn’t lose it. Subsequent visits have done little to rid me of this niggling thought. So, even though we have met relatively regularly, I doubt any friendship will arise.

Has this ever happened to you? Is it difficult to broach this topic, or is it just a figment of my imagination?

Friends Old And New

There are often tentative gestures:
A smile, shared laughter, common interests.
That is, sometimes it is so. Other times,
Inspite of an unfavourable first impression,
Or life being busy, a chance encounter
Leads to friendship. Against all odds.
Or, who knows, maybe because the odds
Are stacked against us. For whatever
Is friendship but tenacious perseverance?

A battle against the sirens of
Eminent business deadlines, jealous lovers,
Small children’s constant demands,
Teenagers’ turbulent assertion for adulthood,
Grown children’s trip, stumbles, and falls,
Ailing parents ail, failing marriages…
Only the warm and loving gestures
Of enduring friendships show how truly
Blessed we are in living the life we do.

My Travel Pal, Nerida

When I was in my late teens, early twenties, I used to come over to Germany every year to visit my ballet friend, Nerida. During the first few years, Nerida was dancing at a state theatre in southern Germany. Then she moved to the German/Swiss border, on the Bodensee, to live with some actors in a farmhouse commune. (The actors performed renaissance comedy as street performers throughout the region.)

On numerous occasions, Nerida and I travelled around on Eurail passes. We travelled up-an-down Germany, uo to Norway, Sweden, over to England, and Whales: if my memory serves right. These trips were always done on a shoestring budget. There was no room for financial error. We didn’t have credit cards, nest eggs, or a disaster fund. What we had, was what we had.

But, of course, we were constantly making mistakes and landing in tight situations. Such as, arriving in London with a long list of “open invitations”, only to discover everyone was off on vacation at the time. Thus we had to forego meals to rent the sleaziest of hotel rooms in the northern outskirts of London. There were no locks on the hotel room doors. Our friendship survived this and many such situations.

There can be no two personalities more different than Nerida and mine. Where she enjoys rigorous immersion in all art and cultural events, I prefer to spend my days on a park bench, watching people walk by. She is industrious. I am lazy. She is meticulous. I am sloppy. But, we are friends. We are best friends.

These journeys taught me a very lesson in life: it is best to travel with a very close friend, or a total stranger. Anything in between is a recipe for disaster.

You have to love your travel companion dearly, so that you can (try to) overlook all their personality quirks. Or, as second choice, travel with a stranger and spend the trip getting to know them. A half-friend, a passing acquaintance, isn’t going to cut the grade.

Nerida and I witnessed other fellow travellers’ bitching, complaining, and whining with a sense of superiority. We shouldn’t have been so sanctimonious, for we were just lucky to get along so well with each other.

Having a travel pal who is also your best friend is one of those chicken/egg dilemmas. Are you best friends because you are travel pals? Or, is it the other way around?

What do you think?

Walk Along The Beach

This afternoon I fell into to a daydream, where I was sitting at a table drinking tea with my dear friend, N. Someone who moved (not so) long ago to Auckland.

N. and I pretend we will see each other soon. We dearly wish it so, but the reality of this possibility is somewhat in a suspended state.

Instead, I write her a letter, I send her sweet smelling flowers, and a walk along the beach... I make her this collage.

Between Times

Cee calls me up this afternoon. Is there any chance we can meet for a cup of coffee? A flash of joy runs through my bones. We haven’t seen each other in ages. It’s lovely to be in the mood, in the position, to make a spontaneous escape from the domestic doldrums.

We’ve known each other for eons. We were neighbours when our children were young. We tried to keep in touch, but rarely succeeded, after they moved outside of the city.

They wanted a rural lifestyle. We liked the city life, despite the fact that we had no garden or playground nearby. Nevertheless, I’ve followed her career, she mine.

We sit in our favourite café. One we used to go with our babies. The coffee was good, the room was baby proof (e.g. no electrical sockets in reach) and the waitress didn’t give us dirty looks if the children wandered out from under the table.

This afternoon, those days seem so far away. Cee remarks upon this.

We chat without really conversing. I’m saddened by the fact we’ve obviously lost the closeness of past times.

At the point when I am wondering whether I should go, Cee is suddenly telling me how she and her husband are divorcing. In between her story of a recent family reunion and a rant about our impoverished educational system, she mentions something so intimate and tragic, I stop breathing.

Instead of asking her “Why?” I ask her “What are you going to do?” and a look of relief cross Cee’s face. She just does not have the energy to bridge the emotional distance that has developed between us. The years of talking only when we’d bump into each other downtown, the thousand promises to meet soon though we never did, back to the time when we’d sit in her garden and confide to each other how overwhelmed we were with life.

Sitting in the café this afternoon, over our second cup of coffee, Cee talks about what she is going to do now. Today. Tomorrow. As long as it takes to finalise her divorce and start on a journey after-her-divorce.

I tell her I’ll help, if she wishes. Certainly, I can do that, though I know those between times are lost. We’ll just have to take tentative steps forward into a new friendship.

Teatime

A dear friend is coming from Hamburg for a cup of tea, well, maybe a pot or two, this afternoon. I’m home early from work. The kids are off to the beach with his (Nomad Son) friends, or playing badminton with her (Nature Girl) friend on lawn in front of Luebeck Cathedral. I still have to shower and make myself look pretty. Instead of getting on with the task, I sit here at the computer looking through a my google reader blogs. Think I’ll make myself a bowl of soup first.

Entertainer And Performer

There is a weekly article in the British weekend glossy magazine section of The Independent, called How We Met. In this article, two long-time friends tell their story: each gives a microscopic view of their first encounter (e.g., what she wore, what I thought the moment I saw her) and a macroscopic outline of pivotal moments and philosophical significances of their friendship. If I was to write such an article, I would write one of Jules.

Yet, it can only be a one-sided story, for Jules and I are no longer in contact. There is no Dramatic Ending to our friendship. He just disappears into obscurity, into some trite cabaret company in Madrid, never to write or contact me again.

I meet Jules in a city in southern Germany at the end of season party of the state ballet company. He is an Adonis in a curly-dark-mane, gorgeous-long-legs, strong-well-defined-torso, young-buck way. He is gorgeous, gregarious and very gay.

He came to audition from South Africa, his homeland, in a whole series of companies; all in hope of getting a contract somewhere, anywhere, in Europe. More than anything, he wants out of South Africa. He wants to escape his past.

I sit next to Jules at the party. He takes over the party, which is a feat considering the room is filled with dancers, actors, and opera singers. He and I dance, talk, and never stop laughing until the wee hours of the morning. At noon he goes off to audition at another company.

I am visiting a good friend of mine, Nerida, who dances in the company in that southern city in Germany. I’ve gave up dance years ago and I am in the process of studying electrical engineering in Canada. Something I omit to tell Jules during the course of the previous evening. He decides to take the offer at that company. This is partly because the company’s choreographer is very radical and interesting. Partly because of me, he senses a like soul in me (he thinks I am a dancer in the company).

The next year, when I come to visit my friend again, Jules sees me in the theatre cafeteria and screams, “You bloody idiot, why didn’t you tell me you weren’t a dancer?” (Though bloody is not the right word.) He comes running over to my table, gives me a big hug and starts talking and doesn’t stop until I leave three weeks later. Nerida, the dear friend I come to visit, is ever so tolerant of Jules and my budding friendship. Something I love her for.

Jules recounts snippets of his life in bursts and starts: some snippets could be true and some could only be true in his imagination. The stories of his childhood in South Africa contain, a pet monkey, building fires on the beach with his friends, a mother he is devoted to, a mother who is an alcoholic and drug addict, an absent father, sexual abuse, a stint as a male prostitute, living with a wealthy patron, studying dance… I never can quite figure out the truth and the lies of his stories, for Jules is an entertainer through and through.

Our friendship takes us through a decade of annual visits. They started in the southern city in Germany, then move onto London, and then Amsterdam. These visits are filled with talk and laughter, long hours of my sitting in on endless rehearsals, watching numerous evening performances, and Jules showing me nightlife I only read about in decadent stories of strange underworlds.

Jules is a rather good ballet dancer, but he is a better entertainer. He performs his steps dutifully on stage in the evenings, but he truly lights up when he is in a gay bar surrounded by wild and weird people: an audience craving entertainment. Then he takes out his Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli imitations, or sings his extensive repertoire of musical numbers.

Occasionally, very occasionally, as we walk home to his apartment in the early hours before dawn, he recounts again snippets of his early life, which are nearly all sad and melancholic now. It is as though, in those moments, his past catches up on him. His childhood crosses the oceans and continents and the passage of time; making it very difficult for him put on the jolly face of the entertainer. This is probably the real Jules, but one who very rarely surfaces.

25 Years Ago, When I Was 25 Years Old…

Charlotte, of Charlotte’s Web wrote a meme about what happened in her life when she was 25 years old.

25 years ago, I was 25 years old. It strikes me as a nice idea to write up my own meme…

When I was 25, I graduated from a fine Canadian university as an electrical engineer. I was older than most of my fellow graduates because I retired from my professional ballet career a few years after they graduated from high school.

When I was 25, I decided to fulfil a lifetime dream and travelled to China for six weeks. China had only recently opened up their borders to travel tours. It was not possible to travel as a single tourist. I chose a very small (10 person) travel tour and invited my mother to come along with me. Thus making the total number of strangers I had to accustom myself to, to eight. My mother was not only a good companion, she was a living library of knowledge about Chinese history, literature, and art.

When I was 25, I decided to leave Canada and try and find a job in Europe. I had a feeling it was either now-or-never. Many friends thought that I was crazy to give up the job offer at a company in Montreal and go off to where?… (nowhere specific) to what?… (no concrete job).

When I was 25, I realised that taking a leap into the unknown scares people and even though they only want what is good-for-you, they don’t really know what that is.

When I was 25, I found out that, despite of what others had told me, the working language in engineering departments at international corporations in Germany, was NOT English. It was not even German, but the local dialect.

When I was 25, I took my first job interview in German, even though I didn’t speak any German. I made up a list of fifty words or phrases (e.g. really!, how interesting, yes, of course, fascinating, very good, definitely) and then repeated them over and over again throughout the hour interview and tour of the production plant.

When I was 25, I discovered that the technical German language was COMPLETELY different to English. This fact astonished me; for French and English words are similar to the point of just using different accents (e.g. resistor/resisteur, capacitor/capaciteur, you get my drift?). Imagine my surprise to learn that resistor was Wiederstand in German, and it just gets worse from there on.

When I was 25, I found out what it was to be lonely. No spoke to me during my work day, I knew no one to speak to outside of work, and I only knew enough German to order a cup of coffee. That first winter was the loneliest in my life.

When I was 25, I discovered that the saying “books are your best friends” can be very true.

When I was 25, I learnt that desperation can be a wonderful tool for breaking down language barriers. A dear Brazilian woman, Cenira, who only spoke Portuguese, and I, who spoke no Portuguese, formed the most lively instant friendship possible. To this day, whenever I hear the expression “speaking with her hands and feet” I think of those first months of our friendship.

When I was 25, I learnt how rude people can be towards strangers (foreigners) looking to rent apartments. I also learnt about pure generosity from a near stranger (the wife of a colleague), who took it upon herself to help me find an apartment to rent, by posing as the potential applicant. (After note: she and I are still close friends after all these years).

When I was 25, I discovered my passion for sitting in cafés and passing the time away.

When I was 25, I planted the seeds to some of my dearest and closest friendships. Those seeds have grown and grown and they have spanned decades and geographical distances.

Serendipity, Or, All Things Artistic And Technological

This is a music video with the American musical duo, CocoRosie. Sierra (Rosie) is playing the harp and kazoo, Bianca (Coco) sings and manipulates the children's toys/electronic instrument.

CocoRosie

What I find so special about the piece, beside the pure serendipity of it, is the fact that they are sisters.

In some ways they remind me of my sister and I: someone who I love dearly, share many interests, talents, and quirky personality traits with. We are both equally interested in all things artistic and technological. We endeavour to squeeze every bit out of each day (talent) and, (unfortunately at times), every bit out of our relationships with others (quirky personality traits).

There are phases where we feel emotionally or spiritually like Siamese twins. Others find us speaking at each other rather to each other: unheard, misunderstood. It doesn’t matter whether we are in the same room together or an ocean apart, we always have something to say. Something deep and meaningful, that can’t wait a second more to be told.

Here’s to you, sis!

Rhapsody in Raps II

A farmhouse outside of Pommerby

Recently, an old friend of mine, who I’d lost contact too, sent a nice short email with her new address in New York. After receiving this life sign, I wanted to find some way to instantly get back in touch with her, find out what has happened in her life in the meanwhile, and to communicate to her about my life. And then I figured out how to do this… I sent her the url to this blog! It is one of the brilliant experiences I’ve had with my blog.

Even though, what I tend to write about are those insignificant incidents in my day-to-day existence, or just the random wanderings of my mind, there is still “enough” there for her to discover the flow and ebb of my life these last years. What could be nicer than that?

Gal's Weekend

Off to Berlin for an extended gals' weekend away. Nothing planned! Just an inclination to enjoy, relax, laugh, eat well, look at art, sit in cafés, and people-watch.

I love travelling. Most particularly, I love travelling on fast German trains. There is something about sitting on a fancy train that makes my mind boil over with ideas.

Freezing our butts off in an outdoor café

Long talk with a friend today. We met for a cup of tea and then stayed on and on discussing relationships and whether or not it is possible to ask a friend or a family member to redefine the relationship. Is it possible to ask an old friend how she sees our friendship? What is it that she wants? What is it that she gives? And what to do when this is just not enough?

These are titbits of what I took away from the conversation today:

• Sometimes I agonize about some development in a relationship, wanting to believe that it can be made whole again, but subconsciously, I know that this is no longer possible
• Authoritativeness and authenticity evolve from a common strength
• Theoretically, it is possible to speak truly and honestly. Practically, it is a hard thing to do even some of the time
• To share the minute details of your woes with a friend and not listen to, or want, any advice is taking advantage of that person

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)