January 3, 007 – Friendship, like love or faith is much invoked but rarely experienced or grasped, I think.
Friendship is on my mind these days because I have been blessed with good and true friends, and so, perhaps for the first time, I am getting a better grasp on what the term means, and how important it is.
  Perhaps you need to spend much of your life without friends, to get the idea.
  Friendship involves honesty, I think, the ability to speak freely and without fear about you and them.
  Friendship involves loyalty. Friendship is non-negotiable. It is a continuum that endures and survives challenges, doubts, anxiety, suspicion. It is immutable, in that, you know it is there, and not something to be replaced by the next thing. I’m of the friend-to-the-death school.
  Friendship involves support, as opposed to help. Knowing when not to help can be as important as when to help. When you really need a friend, a friend is there. But any good friendship has boundaries too, in that there are parts of every life that are inviolate, and something things have to be solved by others, and part of friendship is knowing where those lines are. People who don’t want help can’t be helped, and most often, people need to help themselves in the long run.
 Friendship involves empathy. A good friend knows what you are feeling before you do, and sees life from your perspective, even if he or she has a different one. A good friend cares what you are feeling.
  Friendships, by definition, endure when they are healthy and collapse or wither when they are not. Sounds simple, but not an easy concept to get. Healthy friendships involve love, respect and shared value.
  Friendship involves fun. Letting your hair down. Speaking openly. Being stupid. Being quiet. Being
comfortable.
   Friendship involves trust. Lots of it.
   Friendship is humbling. Good friends take you down, when you need to be taken down.
  Friendship involves shared experience over time. After awhile, good friends know all sorts of things that nobody else knows. In that way, friendship is like a circle that gets stronger.
   Friendship isn’t about geography. It doesn’t matter where friends are. You can talk on the phone, or at a restaurant or via e-mail. It doesn’t matter where you are. Friendship transcends time and space.
   Like many people, I have a complex life. This is a big farm, with all sorts of buildings, animals and problems. It can’t be run alone. You need friends. I’m involved in all sorts of things I could be avoiding if I simply headed south and got my condo, which I would surely rather die than do (speaking only for myself). That approach to life also requires friends. Plus, I live in an isolated, even remote place where the temperature sometimes falls to – 20, like today You need friends on days and nights like that too, to go off to some funky restaurant (like the Barn in Pawlet, Vt. where Tracey gives you a hug and has your drink poured before you sit down)  and just gas on about life and myth and unformed ideas. Friends help there, also.
  I got some big lessons in friendship last year. At certain points, I needed support, and understanding, and – okay, help – and I got it, every day and whenever I needed it. It was sustaining, uplifting, meaningful. But then, I always need my friends, rain or shine.  Awesome.
  Not too long ago, I didn’t understand what the power of friendship was. Now, life without friendship seems almost literally unimaginable.
  What a gift.

Izzy is a friend