Last night the subject of social networking came up again. I can't help myself. Whenever I hear that word networking, especially in conjunction with the people around me who are on each other's social sites (I am on those sites, too, yes I am), Patsy's party comes back into my head. I waver between...should I send out a contact or should I wait? Should I bother to even think about it, or am I rude not to be the one doing the asking? And what if I send out a contact and the person doesn't answer? (That's happened to me once, and I am not eager to have it happen again.)
Anyway, shortly following this, an email discussion arose among a group of women (who were part of the earlier discussion) about friendship...how a person's family members are often found in one's friends and so on -- a thought I go back and forth on as well, because although blood and water are often mentioned in an analogous way -- for good or ill, there is nothing that can be compared to one's family (or to one's friendships, for that matter. But in my head, they are separate entities). I also believe it is because families are so entwined that they are often fraught with these complex internal problems, much the way certain friendships are. Honesty is hard, even on a good day.
I also find an abundance of this kind of discussion makes me nervous, despite the fact that I have as many friends as I think a person has a right to.
Perhaps I am not as trusting as most people are. Perhaps I don't like people as easily as others do. Perhaps I have come to an age where I don't want to be everyone's friend, but would rather bask in and savour the people I feel are closest to my heart and I to theirs.
Besides, some of the greatest friendships -- the deepest ones -- take years to develop.
So you can see where my head was today, up and down, back and forth, always peripherally aware that pecking orders are hard to eradicate, even among the nicest people, and that sometimes we make friends with people who can't read us as well as our family can...which is part of the point.
All this was rattling around in my cheesehead as I was flying in from physiotherapy, when I put my hand in the mailbox. Voila! A Christmas card popped up from one of my favourite-ever people, along with her handwritten and terrible funny letter. (In fact, it was because of this woman's bribe that social networking entered my life in the first place.) Immediately my psyche began healing, and my anxiety about not being popular, and about not wanting to be popular (that's a problem all its own), began to abate.
About an hour later I decided I wanted a Pepsi, hoping it would cure this flu-attached nausea that I am experiencing today. (Mind you, the three -- THREE -- delicious lemon tarts I ate yesterday might be at the root of my unease.) As I opened the inner front door, what did I discover, all the way from Florida, but a beautiful boxed basket of oranges, all dootied up in their holiday fare. I knew who had sent them even before I opened the envelope.
I sat back down on the couch, holding the basket on my knees, remembering with love my first real boyfriend, a friend of mine now for so many decades I am afraid to count that high. We haven't seen one another in years, but he knows me better than almost anyone else in my life. In fact, I don't even have to have a discussion around all of this with him because I know exactly, and intimately, what he would say. (Pretty much what Don would have said: "You goofball!")
The phone rang -- my daughter -- and we started to talk about the holiday season and gifts. I told her about a woman I heard yesterday on CBC Radio, who had called in to a talk-in show to discuss the (de)merits of Christmas gift giving. She relayed a story about how she and her husband cottoned on to an idea a few years ago in reaction to over-doing with their children, and how now, each Christmas, they give four presents apiece -- "something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read" -- which I thought brilliant.
I told my daughter, Sarah, what this woman had said, and about the oranges, and we were comparing all of this to the background screaming of the frenetic gift-giving taking place on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. Sarah said, "You know, Mum, it's really about the oranges, isn't it?"
After I got off the telephone, I went to the front door again to plug in the beautiful outdoor lights, all blue in memory of my mother.
As I went to open the door, I spied something lying in shadow at my feet. There sat the dearest little Christmas tree, made by our friend Mike on account of my having said earlier today that this year we would have no tree. He had trimmed a tree-like bough and decorated the branches with a cranberry, a red velvet bow, and a Christmas tree angel, and placed the tree on a tiny homemade stand...all of this accompanied by his artistically rendered, and perfectly funny, miniature homemade card.
I couldn't help myself. I started to cry. I felt as if Don were poking me gently in the shoulder from the other side of the universe, saying softly, "Don't you see?"
I hadn't intended to write a blog today. My eyes hurt and my stomach is tipsy. But something about how everything fell together, and how I was given an answer, and relief, compelled me.
And it isn't that I don't value everyone in my life, the new along with the old. In fact, I am able to value the new more adequately when I put my life in perspective. But there is something to be said about the people who know you well, and who put you at the top of their lists no matter what your flaws or assets, no matter what your point of view or proclivities, and who couldn't care less about where you stand in the world, that helps me delineate between apples and oranges.
Sometimes all we need are a letter, a small tree, and a basket of oranges to put us back in our place -- the place we belong.
