The older I get, the more I am aware that keeping friends close as realistically possible is a balancing act. The good ones, I have discovered in my senior years, are hard to find. They're keepers, like blue crabs and rock fish that meet the minimum legal length requirement. And when another of life's inevitable storms at sea comes out of nowhere, it's soothing to know that we have anchors to keep us from listing. That's the kind of friendships I have.
My friendships come in all shapes and sizes; they range from people in their 20s to those in their 60s and 70s. They may have been born in different generations and under different presidents, but one thing they have in common: they need my nourishment and I need theirs. Not only does offering a broad (though, now, slightly stooped) shoulder encourage them to lean in hard, it serves as a constant reminder that the world doesn't revolve around me and my needs. It's mutual therapy, a meeting of the minds, affirmation of a mysterious chemistry swirling about.
As kids, having friends — the close ones — had nothing to do with mortgages and mother-in-laws. Instead, they have everything to do with tossing the football on crimson and gold October afternoons. Channeling our darkly mischievous sides and wrapping houses in toilet paper. Catching the Z-4 D.C. Transit (now Metrobus) to Wheaton Plaza (not enclosed, now enclosed Wheaton Mall). And just sort of existing and taking full advantage of puberty. For making sure you avoid having to take summer school for that horrible grade you pulled in biology.
Sadly, time is the great destroyer of friendships. What appears to be an unbreakable bond from kindergarten through high school and, if you're lucky, a semester or two of community college can implode faster than a North Korean missile. Stuff gets in the way, not all of it unpleasant. For example, if you live in a blue state but opt to attend college in a red state, it's good for enriching your holistic horizon. It's a positive thing. But deciding you like it enough to make it your permanent address after graduation can be tough on the relationship you left behind. Marriage is also a foundational social norm that, if handled properly, can impact the broader community by making Olympic athletes out of the products of that union. The flip side, again, can mean setting up housekeeping in another ZIP code. That can spell doomsday for a long, meaningful friendship.
On my wedding day in 1981, one of my childhood friends moved to Israel. He's still there, married, the father of three and thriving. Other friends have uprooted themselves for North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada. I never see them and don't bother to follow them on Facebook. The extent of our communications is the occasional text or phone call. We laugh over decades-old memories, If they come back to Maryland for a visit, I'm not in the loop. And if we ran into each other on the street, given the time that has elapsed since our halcyon days, we may not even recognize each other.
Friendships aren't formed only on the school playground. Years ago, I took my father to the reunion of his "outfit" from World War II. Early on, while nursing another whiskey, my dad's commanding officer leaned over to tell me and the others at the table that my dad, a radio operator on a C-47, "saved the lives of 22 men over the Coral Sea. He's a hero in my book." I was dumbfounded. I had always known my father as a moral, straight arrow type, but hero? Not really, at least not in the eyes beyond our family's house.
Turns out, I was instrumental in getting them back together. A few years earlier, the CO happened to hear my name on the radio. I had entered a contest and won the grand prize: a diamond necklace I gave to my mom on Mother's Day. Recognizing the name, he picked up the phone and called my dad. Like magic, a dormant relationship had been revived. "I wish I had contacted him sooner," said the CO, regret in his voice. "We let too much time pass." They picked up right where they left off.
There's a Japanese term, "kenzoku," that means "family bond."
Time and distance, the translation emphasizes, are powerless in loosening the ties that bind. Friendships, the ones we are assigned to celebrate and hold dear, are they ones that we are gifted with after the wheat is separated from the chaff. They are the ones with that stardust quality.