Friendship, Laughter and the Power of Personal Stories. Blog 122

This isn't Carol

Morning all. Its Lark o'clock - soon after a glorious time at Owl o'clock.

So -  I took my own advice from yesterday's blog and spent some one-on-one 'quality' (hate that phrase) time with a couple of friends. My day ended with a wonderful and convivial evening with Carol from Matlock. She arrived in Barking from Derby just in time for a glass of champagne and some morsels on the patio before sunset. We haven't had a chance to catch up for some months now, and I was touched that she made the effort to travel such a long way to spend time with me. Friendship is the glue that holds my life together much of the time, that and creative and artistic partnerships, and family of course too. But friendship and friends have a unique place - its that old cliche about choosing them. 

I love to laugh, and I mean to laugh so fully and deeply that the tears are pouring down my cheeks, and to do that in the glow of friendship seems to me one of life's most exquisite gifts.

And I have funny friends, who regale me with stories, real and imagined that most often result in shared squeals of delight and copious helpless tears! This is particularly true when I spend time one-on-one and our shared imaginations play off each other. Indeed for me friendship is a pure and uncompromising act of creativity and love. Sometimes the things my friends tell me are so hilarious I have to stop to write them down. There is often a minor quizzical look in the eye as they suspect I might 'out' them in my blog the next day - after all where does the daily material come from if not from the stimulation of such glorious encounters! Of course I have to be careful not to disclose that which is not mine - so innocent identities protected etc..........well when necessary! 

People's stories are the carriers of their identity, and how they tell their story the mood music of their lives. How is it that some have gone through dreadful traumas, the death of a child, or a loss of home and job and yet manage to find humour in the absurdity of life's twists and turns whilst others sink into despair? I have no idea what makes the difference. But what I notice is that the friends I have who face their own demons never become victims to them, and in that alchemy lies the foundation of their ability to laugh at themselves and even at the calamity of their situation! Its like an inoculation they give themselves. This doesn't mean their experiences are any the less traumatic or grief filled than someone who gnaws and gnashes. Its just that they have a way of wrapping a metaphor, story or image (poem - dare I say) around their experience that gives meaning and shape, and maybe even purpose.

A friend left me in stitches only the other day when she was recalling her early years as the youngest in a large family, living pretty much on the breadline in the late sixties. Her mother died when she was a baby, and for a while she and her siblings were brought up by their father, who himself died when she was still very young. She is an orphan and this has given a mood music to her life which is resonant, full and success filled.

G*** lived in the back streets of a northern city where her Dad did his best to keep a roof over his children's head in the short years in which he outlived his wife. G*** recounts that the sound of the rag-and-bone man was a regular feature of daily life as he scavenged the streets for unwanted household goods. And out of the memories of these early years jumps G***'s story of the goldfish and the goldfish bowl. The seven young siblings, often left to their own devices rummaged around and made their own amusement on the street and in and out of the house. On one particular evening their house reverberated with the angry declaming of their father's voice - he had returned home only to find that in the place of the old cooker in the kitchen was instead a goldfish bowl and a goldfish swimming obliviously around in it. This for the grinning faces of my friend and her siblings - seemed like a good swap really. The truth of G***s life experience of poverty lightened by this moment and others like it tell a deeper story of resilience and imagination that is a signature of her now adult life. It gives her a foundation as secure as any other

and enables her to live with humility and courage - although she would flatly deny the latter! And it makes her a great friend to share the ups and downs with, in the sure knowledge that there is never a hint of pity. 

And so for me my friendships renew and restore me, they herald intimacy and individuality and offer a safe space in the hardcore realities of the dark times.I am blessed by having wonderful friends who never cease to surprise me with their stories and imaginings. 

So breakfast soon when the still-owl-sleeping Carol eventually emerges  - and a day of more anticipated hilarity I have no doubt! 

Its Saturday - so a good day for restoring and renewing oneself with good friends I suggest.Enjoy it - I plan to!

Carol and I laughing!

Header quote by Sylvia Plath