a letter to Izabela
Dearest Izzy, It is a curious circumstance to have a friend. It is delightful to be one. Emerson has said that a new friend should cause us to lose sleep in favor of enraptured thought engendered by recollections of intercourse with one who has shaken our souls. Curious and delightful the hours I have lain awake of late, speaking with you across the night and imaging your reply, impatient to hear your thoughts on every subject of our mutual interest. You have written to me of late a letter that included the following greeting, taken from an unknown source: "What a wonderful gift of fate that we could live our lives at the same time on Earth." This is the very anthem of friendship, a paean to the kind gods that bend and straighten the avenues of our existence, causing two who will comfort and love one another to turn face to face around some sharp corner of the all-too-often cold and merciless maze of the world, and then to walk forevermore through it, arm in arm. I wondered a bit today at something you wrote in which you referred to me as the "larger soul" in our relationship. It made me a bit shy and unsure at first, and I cringed a bit at the thought of an inequity in our association; but then I thought of Godwin's essay in which he argues that the great friendships of antiquity and myth were always composed of a "larger soul" and a faithful companion, a dynamic personality and another relied upon for quiet strength and sure guidance, a trusted mate: Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Alexander and Hephaestion, Scipio and Laelius. (Should I perhaps cite more contemporary and more universally recognized duos, dear one? Batman and Robin? The Lone Ranger and Tonto? Fonzie and Richie? Jerry and George? No matter — I know you understand.) I have Godwin in my mind now, dear, and so I will let him guide my thoughts further. "Friendship is to the loftier mind the repose, the unbending of the soul." How true this seems when I consider the time we spend together! Each day, we pace through the throngs with forethought and calculation, meting out carefully our actions and our words, dancing ever to the tune of the wide world, making certain that we do not fall a step out of line and so jeopardize our place in society. After such endless acrobatics, how sweet it is to fall into a chair and close the door and have you sitting across from me, a like spirit who demands nothing but myself as I sit slouched before her. At such times, your company is to me a good cup of tea and a Mozart piano concerto, the first intoxicating sip of a fine merlot, coffee and cinnamon. It comforts in hours of meditation and self-discovery, during those times when I find who I am by seeing myself reflected in the accepting gaze and soft smile of a loving friend. "There can be no passion, and by consequence, no love, where there is not imagination." Tell me, who sparks the imagination more than a trusted friend does? In those sequestered hours of gentle conversation and laughter, we are able to peer over the precipice of the present and gaze into the future of our lives, to throw stones of speculation into the vastness of what may be and listen for the distant report. With a friend, we are free, and freedom allows us to become whatever we wish, to try on all the costumes and customs of living, to remember what we have been, know who we are, and imagine what we might be. And then, best of all, a companion can give good aid toward becoming that better self that is almost visible there on the far horizon of our most hopeful thoughts. "This is the being that is like unto myself." Here Godwin has made an almost perfect definition of a friend. Still, you have refined this definition. You once wrote to me and asserted that you wished to be like me, but not too much like me. You are wise in this wish. To know everything about anyone, and especially anyone with whom one has frequent and intense interaction, would grow tiresome and would leave no secret spaces and exciting vistas to be discovered. It is told by one comedian of another that, when they were in England, and strolling along beside a row of quaint houses in the suburbs of London, his mate broke away and gazed into the cellar beside one of the houses, and so all along the block, peering into each cellar beside each home. Finally, unable to bear further this curious behavior in silence, the first asked of his companion, "What in the world are you doing?" The second replied, "While I'm in England, I don't want to miss anything." How this is like the journey through a good friendship! We do not want to miss anything while we are making the trip, and yet, at the same time, we never want to run out of cellars, alleyways and odd shops to poke through. We forever wish a safe and somewhat familiar passage, but we never wish to discover the end the road. "I cannot love a person vehemently, and strongly interest myself in his miscarriages or success, till I feel that I can be something to him." Again, Godwin has spoken well. There is always something of the chivalric in a good friendship. Each wishes to be something of a hero to the other, to protect and to serve, to guide and to advise, and to feel that one is both needful and needed in the most benevolent and satisfying manner. In the best of relationships, there is a wearing of colors, a secret sign, a vow to stand together against the harsh onslaught of the hordes that storm out from the ramparts of the uncaring world. A fine friendship is a law unto itself; its statutes are written in the hearts of the two, and the execution of this law is carried out by the limbs without forethought or consideration. We need not consult the books or a judge, nor engage a barrister; we are edict, adjudicator, and attorney. Finally, Montaigne: "Your arm is in my sleeve." What a charming phrase! And there is no better way to speak of the role of a friend. "Your arm is in my sleeve." That is to say that our wills are one; that what you wish, you shall have by my hand; that your fingers will reach for my sword should I need defense; that we extend a helping grasp to each other only to find that we are shaking our own hand — that when we push bread into the palm of the other, we feed ourselves. This is the very miracle of friendship, Izzy. It is the envy of the gods. It is the one thing that could not be taken from Prometheus, even when he was slain in hell. It is for all seasons and for all hours of the day and night. It was present at the moment of the first cooperation and was the beginning of the end of thoughtless brutality. It will be a boon as long as this world is well inhabited, and it will do the earth's inhabitants well as long as they share it. Do write to me soon, dear one, and be not long from my side. My love and friendship always, Doug |
"Friendship" appeared in The New Times in April 1996. This is the sequel to that piece.