On Friendship.

It’s hard to forget the first one. The first kiss; the first apartment; the first A+; the first day. The first friend.

 

True friends are a rare breed. They’re a sort of soulmates, people who know you and accept you and love you despite your flaws, who challenge you to overcome those flaws, and who serve as guides and companions in the thicket where we all find ourselves.

 

When I moved to DC a year ago, I initially stuck to group of college and law school acquaintances. These people, while not true friends, were familiar; they liked me and I liked them. We had a common background. With time, we’ve nurtured these seedling relationships into something stronger.

 

As much fun as we have, though, none of them are really close.  None are “best friend” material, in other words, as hoaky and 3rd-grade as that term looks written out.  I think I have about four “best friends” in my life—a “grew up with me” friend, a high school friend, a college friend, and a law school friend. All of them live impossibly far away, but we make it work. I don’t remember intending to narrow down a favorite in every category, and perhaps the limitation isn’t really fair; I do keep up with most people. These four, though–these four are something else.

 

I’ve been missing that sister-like female companionship out here. It seems odd, but in a lot of ways, post-academic friendships seem more to parallel dating than family except for, well, you know, the obvious.  Seriously, though—it seems us girls are almost scouting for new friendships, rather than just growing up with them.  We’re looking for new potentials, new opportunities; we’re looking for women to be close to who are maybe more in line with What We Do Now than Who We Were Then.  It’s a heck of a lot harder than it used to be, at least so far in my experience.

 

I’ll call my first DC friend FF. (First friend—oh so creative am I). She works in my company; I sat next to her at a training course. She was young. She had curly hair. She was friendly. Right there, beneath the fluorescent lights, we had an understanding; we glanced each other across the room, and we just knew. It was like friendship-love at first sight. We called, we e-mailed, we went to each others’ apartments and downed bottle after bottle of wine. I threw her a birthday party; we watched Grey’s Anatomy every week; we’d spend whole Saturdays walking the mall and taking ridiculously posed photos by the monuments. It was bliss. And then … and then it wasn’t, and I’m still not sue why.

 

We never did have a falling out, nor did we really disagree. It just kind of stopped working. Here again, the dating analogy: it was one of those “seemed nice for awhile, but not going to go the distance” type things. She was never going to be someone who I’d share enough with to really, really know. She was a companion—but not a real friend. We both realized it. It’s hard, even now, to delineate how that happened.

 

We came from similar backgrounds, and had—at least superficially—similar interests. We both really wanted it to work. In the end, though, what we had in common wasn’t enough. I didn’t stop liking her, but I realized that I’d never really love her. We just didn’t have it—past the initial fireworks, we were two pretty different girls. Just as fast as it flew together, it began unraveling. We both seemed to step back, watching in silence from our respective corners as the yarn became, once again, individuated strands.

 

Our wine dates fizzled into coffee breaks, then whittled down to e-mails. We’ve exchanged polite regrets to loosely veiled formality invites. I saw her in the elevator this afternoon; she was coming back from coffee, alone; I was returning from a late lunch. Alone. We smiled; we assured each other that we were fine, things were going well, yes, you too, have a great afternoon. Though we spend our days separated by but one floor, she could be in another country.

 

I’m still mourning this friendship, and I’m still confused by it.  I don’t know what there is to mend there, and I think we’ve each moved on—but still, I miss her. She was the first.

 

I’m also a little bit alarmed that we seem to be heading towards an elevator relationship, a la Meredith and Derek. Gaaah! I don’t even know what happened. As I tell my single friends, though—hang tight! The right ones are out there. Somewhere.

Thinking, Floating

If I were to compose a list of my favorite places to just sit and think, I imagine it would go something like this, ordered only as places cross my mind:

• The Egypt room at the Met in New York
• The intimate upstairs of Caffe Vita in Seattle
• The sofa in the formal living room at my parents’ house
• The floor of my walk-in closet
• The caribou coffee overlooking the subway entrance at metro center
• The picture windows at Reagan National
• The room with Japanese screens in the Sackler Gallery 

I sat in the screen room over the weekend, part of my “you live on the metro, so get out there and see the city” campaign.  Japanese art conveys a delicate poignancy and taps, I think, a larger longing within me.  The woodblock paintings.  The brush strokes forming mountains, trees, steeply sloping roofs.  Koi.  Paper umbrellas and wood-block shoes.  I’m drawn in, and I don’t know why. 

Edo, the floating world.  Sometimes I’d like to float along; enjoy the beauty of the moment, but consciously detach.  Be a cherry blossom for a bit.  I look at the screens and I see something elusive, something defying capture.  I feel almost haunted, like I’m seeking something I’ll never find.  Art only does this to me when I have the luxury of being very still. 

But the floating world’s fate was pretty much sealed, right?  Edo burned, was transformed, became today’s Tokyo.

I lived for a time in Japan, on the southern island of Kyushu; under the auspices of “studying,” but I think we all know how that usually goes.  Where simplicity and tradition and formality meet cutting edge, high-tech, and English-world-style popularity there is an interesting people indeed.  There I was a floater: in one season, out the next, picking and choosing.   I didn’t find what I was looking for.  I went to Cathedrals and monasteries, saw shrines packed between high rises, spent  rolls and rolls of film documenting power lines crossing through ancient Shinto gates.  It’s like worlds colliding, like you can actually see it.  I look at these meticulously painted geishas, and I can’t help but feel I know their fate. Haunting, yes.  Also probably nonsensical, but there you are.