Friendship

Today’s drawing of Mary Magdalene

When the time comes to plan the Mary Magdalene Celebration, I call on my friends. I always feel a little afraid that nobody will care enough to join me. But my friends, those whom I have known for years, show up. They help me, they accompany me and bring their gifts of music, poetry, art and dance to the center of the circle. They dance with me in community. We celebrate.

What are we without friendship? Apart from lonely, without friendship we walk through life without witnesses and without witnessing. Friends are the mirrors that show us ourselves and teach us about our own journeys. Friends remember for and with us.

In our society, in a city like New York, as we grow older it seems more difficult to grow new deep friendships. Long distances, the local culture of individualism, and the simple difficulty of hard work and long days make time with friends rare and sparse. And as we settle and build routines, we find time gone.

It takes effort. And it’s easier to let time pass. Or send a text. Or go on living without noticing that we are becoming isolated and lonely.

Today while celebrating our friend Maria Mar’s birthday, my friend Corazón told us about how her parents cultivated friendship and taught their children the value of making new friends, and of keeping their old friends. I had never heard of a conscious practice of friendship taught by parents. But how beautiful it would be to arrive at old age with a large network of people of different ages who love and appreciate you because, in your younger years, you took the time to cultivate the relationships that in time grew into strong, loyal friendships.

As a child, my grandmother took me with her to visit friends and cousins, other family members, the people that were part of her life since childhood. It was normal to visit without calling, to drop by unannounced. And as people installed phones in their homes, it was normal to call someone just to say hello.

My older friends still call sometimes, and my 94-year-old mother-in-law has a special technique: she calls for about 1-2 minutes. Nobody can complain about that!

As an adult, I received so many friends traveling through in my home, and welcomed and adopted so many young friends that I found along the path. But these days, I mostly only see the people at work, and I am sometimes afraid to call old friends. Even though I have always appreciated an act of friendship, why do I feel that people in general are not interested or that I would bother them if I call? Doesn’t it take a first step from someone?

As we experience our changing world, a world of AI and fast processing of information, of transhumanism and existencial angst, the pursuit of friendships might be the balancing factor we all need to remain fully human.

To all my friends that take that first step and call me, thank you. It’s time for me to reciprocate.