On Friends and Friendship...

When I first decided to discuss  friends and friendship I hardly realized how vast and complex the subject is.  I also realized that my life has been changed, complicated, blessed , bruised but mostly it has been greatly enriched by it. Friends and the relationships you have with them shape yor life and how you view and relate to people...how you handle love, loss, adversity and happiness.

The first friends I can remember were my childhood friends, most of whom lived in our apartment house ...Larry and Eddie, the twins across the hall..Judy, who was my bestie all through childhood into young womanhood... she was Matron of Honor at my wedding.  Linda, who moved  away when I was seven and gave me one of my first tastes of true loss. There was also Janie, Ellen R., Vera, Fanny and Beckie and Leslie who lived in the building next door...and "The Boys"...Jay, David, Elkan, Mel (and his friend Maxie, who lived down the street), Bobby, Michael,  and Donny. We lived in a beautiful apartment building with four distinct sections connected by a center garden and a basement that went from building to building.  Each section had a doorman and in the center of the garden sat an information booth with a concierge.  We congregated in The Booth, played ball, hop-scotch  or pushed our doll carriages in the back yard, played tag in the gardens. We all walked to school together in a huge crowd.  I could never imagine losing one of these adored friends.  Together we attended birthday parties, scouts, religious school, and did homework.  For some unknown reason David and I were always teamed up in school  and we made a paper mache map of North America that got the only A+!  Until I was seven these friends were my world, my playmates and my support.  They were constant and available...How could I imagine life without them?.  But then Linda moved to Long Island, and so did the twins...a hole in my life started to open. I began to understand loss, sadness and the realization that nothing is forever.  We called and visited occasionally, but they were gone from the daily thread of my life...and I survived...

And then Palm Beach happened.  I was wrenched from this safe and loving world I knew...from these friends who seemed to define my childhood, and off we went to Florida. My dad was transferred there for The Season, for years. I knew no one.  School for me was a nightmare.  The other children knew each other like I knew my New York friends.  A safe pack for them made me an outsider.  I made school friends but their world was not mine.  I attended school, played, had sleep-overs, went to parties but in my heart I knew I did not really fit in here.  Joan saved my life!  Joan was the daughter of my dad's colleague.  Her parents and mine were dearest friends and Joan and I were the two New York girls.  We attended different schools but week-ends were usually spent together. Saturdays we went to Clematis Street or Worth Avenue and tried on clothes we had no intention of buying...we shared ice cream at the counter in Woolworth's, sodas at the Apothecary, or went to the movies ...and we spent Sundays at the pool or on the beach with our parents.  We had sleep-overs and secrets and we had a shared culture.  Without Joan I could not have survived Palm Beach.  As we grew up our lives intersected through our parents and occasionally we saw each other, but to me Joan is still a dear and treasured friend who made the almost intolerable years in Palm Beach tolerable for this lost child.  And I learned a lesson.  Without friends there is lonliness.

                                                                       
Middle school, high school and college brought many more friends into my life.  I now understood that different friends bring different elements into a relationship, and they brought their gifts to me  just as I gave mine to them.  There were friends who contributed to my intellectual pursuits(such as they were..! ) There were the friends of fraternity and sorority days...Lew and Ritchie (who liked to visit my mother, even when I was not at home), Harvey who loved to write lyrics with me ...( I introduced him to his wife)! Lesley and Eddie and Judy (from my childhood days) and each of us was spreading our wings into the world but holding on to eachother for dear life becausewe were familiar and sure and we knew we could count on each other.  Then Judy got married.  She married a man who was deeply religious and her life began to move in directions far removed from the way I was going.  Her husband began to pull her into a world where he did not welcome me. Such a loss...my heart still carries a warm place for Judy and the friendship we shared. 

We all began to move in different directions...some to graduate schools, some to jobs, some into military service.  This was how you grew up.  How you dealt with relationships, how you learned to support, to nurture and to say good-bye.

                                                                          
I was always with my friends.  We went to the beach, classes, movies, shows, week-ends away.  We were mostly all working now and many were getting married.  We attended showers, Rehearsal Dinners and weddings...and we cheered each other on as jobs were secured, raises, promotions or honors were bestowed. I understood the psychology of The Pack now.  "One for all...all for one..."

But then one friend comes along who becomes more than a friend.  He becomes the repository of your dreams and hopes...he becomes your husband!  This is the friendship like no other.  It brings together every emotion you learned through all the other friendships of your life.  It is intense and special.  He is keeper of your secrets, the other parent of your children, the wiper of your tears and the sharer of your laughter.  His is the shoulder upon which you lean and the hand you hold in times of sorrow and joy.  He is your closest friend ever. This is the friendsip requiring the most work, and can be the most satifying or the most devastating of your life.  I am still working at it after 47 years!

(1964)

                                                                  (1964)      

                                                                  (1980)        

                                                                                             (2008)    

We moved many times as my husband followed business opportunities.  Each move brought new friendships and new life's lessons.  There were many new friends during the earlier moving around years and some became close and dear and are close to us still.  There were neighbors and colleagues, parents of our children's friends and chance meetings.   There were longtime, close friends who I thought were forever...and some still are. But as you move on and up, as you struggle to achieve success some who you think are cheering you on are actually envious and waiting for you to fail.  I had a friend for many years who had chidren the same ages as mine. We spent so much time together. Many of my other friends really disliked her as did many in my family, but I persevered.  We did have fun...but she was very needy and I must have responded to her neediness for some reason.  I always found myself on call for one trauma or another.  When I moved to the City we still spoke every day, saw each other less but still connected often...and then she wanted into an area of my life that was not open to her and she became difficult.  I learned a hard lesson here...I learned that no matter how close you are to a friend, when they take and take and take and give little in return there is no balance and it doesn't work.  There needs to be balance in friendship...give and take...be there when needed and know there is someone there when you have need of them. When both friends are not getting the same pleasure from the relationship...when one is always giving and the other usually taking...when one appreciates and the other is never satisfied...it is time to say good-bye.  Lesson learned.

Among the best times of my life are what I call The City Years.  Here I made true, close, wonderful friends.  It was during this time my beloved Boardbroads came into my life. (see earlier post )  The comraderie, unselfishness and warmth of these women was refreshing and sometimes overwhelming.  I am so close to many of them and devoted to all, even several I have never actually met in person...but they all contribute so much to the relationship...always there to support and advise...in good times and not so good...there is alsways a hand to hold mine...and I try to reach out to them.

 The Boardbroad group           

...and my most dear and closest friends who know my secrets and whose secrets I hold, who have been with me through thick and thin, have shared my happiest times and held me close during the worst, who have given and received, who have laughed and cried with me, my besties...Irene and Arthur... Bobbie and Mike... along  with Rita and Phil... my cousin Stefanie... Jim and Allen...Marion and   Stanley...Cissy and Bob...Jane...Barbara...Wendy...Susan...Maureen...Joanne..and on and on....and on...



Friends.  How can one exist without them? They have taught me the truth about  trust and support and sharing.  They have accepted me with all of my flaws and gifts as I accept them.  They bring laughter and intellect and companionship, comfort, security, excitement and calm.  They come in all ages, sizes, colors and religions.  My friends are from as long ago as my childhood to ones as new as last week.  They come to me so many different ways...from my friends at the salon where my hair is done,  my children's friends, my fellow members at the charity I support, clients and vendors in my business,even on-line friends met on  mutual interest sites such as travel or dogs, and people I meet along the way (like my husband's long ago schoolmate ...who I met on-line but never in person, and learned we have much in common)...and acquaintances become friends and friends become sustenence.

There is one friendship in my life that has been constant since I was 5 years old.  Every step of my life since then I have shared with her.  We have stood side by side, not always agreeing but always supporting each other.  No one in the world can make me laugh harder than she can. No one but she could have shared the wrenching heartbreak of the loss of our parents.  We are the keepers of the other's memories and the guardians of our history.  She is my best friend.  She is my sister.

                                                               
I have become good friends with some of my clients over the years and many are excellent cooks.  Here is a favorite I make often and think of this client each time:
Lasagna
2  containers of home made marinara sauce (or 2 jars store bought)
1 large container whole milk ricotta cheese
1 lg  + 1 sm. mozzarella (whole milk) and 1 large bag shredded mozzarella cheese
3 tbsp. chopped parsley
1 scant tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 pkgs. lasagna noodles (no boil lasana noodles are ok)
1 egg
parmigiana chees grated
salt and pepper to taste

1- Spoon a thin layer of sauce in a large lasagna pan
2- Mix ricotta cheese, egg and sugar together and then add the parsley, salt and pepper to taste and mix again
3- slice mozarella cheese in 1/4 inch slices
4-Layer pasta on top of thin sauce layer...then spread ricotta cheese...then add slices of mozzarella and spoon on sauce.
5- Repeat this process until you have about 3-4 layers and finish with the shredded mozarella on top of the last application of sauce.  Sprinkle grated parmigiana over the mozarella and bake in a 350 degree oven until it gets bubbly on edgesand heated through...about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

Wonderful served with Ceasar salad and garlic bread!
                                                               
A quick and easy way to make a Ceasar salad:
1 romaine lettuce...washed and shredded
4-5 tbsp. Marie's ceasar dressing
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
parmigiana cheese
1 cup croutons
1-Mix dressing with garlic powder and pour over lettuce
2- top with croutons and sprinkle with parmigiana cheese
3-Toss again and serve
Curls of parmigiana cheese sheared off of a wedge of parmigiana is a lovely garnish on each portion.
  Chianti is great with this very peasant meal.