love and friendship yaya

I tend to pick up people easily. When I am extroverting I am cheerful, peppy, generous and a little bit funny. And I like to meet new people in the eternal hope that they will become the soul friends that all women need in order to survive. It is safe to say I know a fair number of people I could invite to dinner. Who would send cards when I am sick. But the number of soul friends I have had and currently have in my life is very small. So that’s what this note is about.

Let me define soul friend. This is the woman from whom you have no secrets. Who know you at your best and worst and continues to love you. This is the woman you would strip naked emotionally and physically in front of and know there would be no condemnation- even if she disagreed she would share that with you with compassion and love in her voice.

Currently I have four of these in my life. That’s a blessing even though it is a small number. It could have been six but two of them I fucked up because I was too young and arrogant to know what I had and their jealousy of my life made it impossible for me to be myself with them and I didn’t understand fully back then who was suitable or maybe how to be a really great friend.

I am going to start with the two I lost because I am never going to let that happen again. Both were in Colorado. One was the wife of a woman whose now ex husband went to law school together. After law school he dumped her and she had a hard time- as one would expect- but she was very needed, coveted what I had ( not being dumped and now having a spouse who earned a very nice salary while she had to still do secretarial work). Even window shopping became forbidden because she would say things like …well you couldn’t that but I never can. And if I got a gift or changed the house I was afraid to even let her know. The one thing she felt she had that wasn’t available to me was ex with any tom dick or bigger dick, and so she became pretty promiscuous and even had sex in my bathroom during a dinner party at my house. So you can see why we drifted apart.

The other was a Social Worker who was the most fun simpatico woman I had met in ages. When we were together we were like teens. Trying on lipsticks and then kissing each other on the cheeks while REAL teens gawked at us . We shared dressing rooms and swapped cock tail dresses and howled with laughter. And once we spent house shut in a squash court while we both cried about our lives. She about her several marriages and divorces and me about my lack of career. But I adored her and I don’t know any specific thing that happened- she moved from Denver and we lost touch and then she came back and it just wasn’t the same. I still can get deeply sad about the loss if her. And now I don’t even know how to find her to beg her to forgive me. We Jews do that in Elul.

But I do have 4 left: and I wont go on too much about them except to say I worship them. Hope I give as much to them as they give to me and in dark moments wonder why they put up with me and in bright moments never question it. I just thank the fates our paths crossed.

Arlene I have known the longest. We were VISTA roommates and now in our 60’s can vacation together because our husbands are so similar and we all love each other. Every day she teaches me patience and how to wait and how to love without reservation. Her laugh in infectious, her face luminous and her blue blue eyes are like the ocean. Words can't express how much I love her.

Diane in Alabama looks like Princess Diana. She has a moral center that is so obvious that in a group- and I have served on many boards and committees with her – when she finally speaks up it doesn’t matter what we all have been discussing, everyone looks at her with this DUH look because she hits it on the head and articulates the right compassionate and sensible thing to do. And she has three girls that are amazing women in their own rights.

Diane in Connecticut- formerly Denver- I met when her older child was in my preschool class and then when I graduated to a chi-chi private school Em graduated too and she was in my class for two years. I held off being her friend until I was no longer Em’s teacher.
A genuine sacrifice because Diane has a depth of soul and wisdom born from sadness that none of us should ever have to experience. First of all she was gracious and kind to even person who crossed her path. She was always independently wealthy and never let that get in the way of who her friends were. She mix comfortably with the governor or a guy who was asking for coins on the street. Plus she took sides. Friends should take sides. And when a friend was wronged she was THERE. Telling you how okay you were and unfairly you had been treated….. and this is going to make me cry now. She was never jealous of my love for her daughter. So Emily became the girl I could take to the nutcracker. Or for high tea or buy her first corsage at a dance recital. And she let me really love Em- as I so badly did because I wasn’t able to have anymore children. And then Em took her own life a after being a star at Yale and Penn Law School. And beloved by so many peers but Em never saw that and in her brilliance was very successful at taking her own life. And Diane let me grieve without telling me her grief was bigger than mine. And a day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of Em and how much I loved her and how much she stole from us by leaving this world.

And now here in Portland I met Toni. We met when I was giving away a bed frame on Craig’s list and she called and said she and her son had been playing on the bed and it broke and she needed one. SO she came by to get it and there was this instant CLICK. And now 4 years later there is no one else in Portland who makes me laugh or cry or entertains or cares for me (except Jim) the way Toni does. And we can make fun of each others fat. And hang out for 9 hours straight and still not want to part because every time I see I feel my humanity and goodness a little more. She thinks I am going to make hoards of important friends here and drop her which is so utterly ridiculous. And next week she and her son and I are going to the amusement park so we can crash into each other in bumper cars and eat junk food and spend quarters in the arcade. And how often do you meet a woman _ who is beautiful inside and out and doesn’t now it and to whom you confess your worst sins and she laughs and hugs you? I mean , is this amazing? Who needs crowds? They are going to mourn me or I am going to mourn them but the point is we know that these days on earth are brightened and given greater meaning by knowing them. And that we can even believe that we brighten their lives too. Oh shit. I my eyes are burning from the moisturizer and tears mix. But crying over love is okay.

I just wish we all lived within 5 miles from each other and we would be the yaya sisterhood because I know these women would all love one another. I know it !!