On Friendship and Showing Up

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Photo Courtesy Damali Miller. Circa 1980 something or another.

Earlier this week I came upon an Instagram account run by an AirBnB superhost who posts brief clips of himself dancing while making music on a synthesizer and mixers set-up in what appears to be a corner of his living room. To watch is to witness 30 seconds of unselfconscious joy. It brought to mind a talent show I attended in middle school, a mostly miserable and preferably forgotten period in my life best left behind in the last century. I remember looking on from the audience as five or six of my classmates walked onstage with Casio keyboards of varying models tucked beneath their arms. They proceeded to form a solemn semicircle on the edge of the stage and without a shred of irony they attempted what I can only describe as the equivalent of a drum circle - but with a spotlight - and synthesizers. I’m almost certain not a single one of them knew how to play. I can’t remember if the audience collectively cringed, cheered or proffered up some combination of the two. And yet. And yet they rocked out.

In the 1980s, I had neither the inclination nor the keyboard for that matter, to join them, but now? Now I want that. Not the Casio, although that could be fun. Maybe? What I want is to be so wholly, so decidedly unconcerned with other people’s opinions as to let anything interfere with me showing up fully as myself and sharing with the world that which makes my whole self happy.

With synthesizers and the ‘80s on my mind, I woke this morning reaching for music of that era. And though I hadn’t thought about the group or their music in ages, I chose Whodini, one of Hip Hop’s earliest successful acts. Folks from a certain generation and locale may recognize their single, Five Minutes of Funk, as the opening theme (itself a masterpiece) for the long running television show Video Music Box. One of these days I will write a whole love letter to VMB.

Friends was one of Whodini’s biggest hits. 

Friends

How many of us have them?

Friends

Ones we can depend on

Friends

Before we go any further,

Let’s be friends

I have been lucky to encounter many wonderful and beautiful, in every sense of the word, people in my lifetime. Luckier still, I can call a small number of those people friends. I like to think I am much better at it now but for a time, particularly in young adulthood, maintaining and strengthening friendships was like a mysterious alchemy. I didn’t always show up the way I wanted to or the way folks needed. And I have regrets. I know every friendship is not meant to endure and that they don’t all carry the same weight. And that’s okay. But friendships are valuable treasures worth cultivating. And if I’ve learned one thing about friendships, its this: In order to show up for your friends, first you have to show up for yourself. Until you invest in yourself, developing your interests, recognizing your flaws, holding yourself accountable, forgiving, being vulnerable and really celebrating who you are - you cannot fully do those things for someone else. 

It’s one of the reasons I think friendships forged in early childhood sometimes come more easily than ones made in adulthood. When you are a kid, you are still showing up, every day - for the most part- as your full and total self. You have not yet contorted or walled off parts of yourself. If you are not fully yourself, your friendships and other relationships can be good yes, but they may never have the depth, richness and complexity that they could.

When you are a kid, you are still showing up, every day - for the most part- as your full and total self. You have not yet contorted or walled parts of yourself off.

a recommended read

The Friends by Rosa Guy was one of my favorite books growing up. It’s the first in a trilogy about two teenaged girls in 1960s Harlem - one an immigrant from the Caribbean and the other African American - who become friends. In a 1973 review, literary titan Alice Walker wrote:

I feel especially blessed when reading the books of Virginia Hamilton, Toni Cade Bambara, Lucille Clifton, June Jordan, Louise Merriweather, Toni Morrison and other fine engagé black women writers; for I am thinking of a young black girl who spent the first 20 years of her life without seeing a single book in which the heroine was a person like herself.

That girl learned about love and longing and madness from the Brontë sisters, and about ostracism, mystery and shame from Dickens, Melville and Hawthorne. And though she loved those authors and the characters they created, it was not lost on her that even her favorite character, Jane Eyre, in real life, would not have thought her a suitable companion, and Heathcliff's weirdness would have seemed “normal” when set against the brownness of her face. I do not know what damage being that girl has done me; I suspect a good deal. But now, with books like Rosa Guy's heart‐slammer, “The Friends,” I relive those wretched, hungry‐for-heroines years and am helped to verify the existence and previous condition of myself.

Forty-five years later in 2018, writer Michael A. Gonzales wrote,“Guy’s novels are like Judy Blume books for black teenagers.” The Friends is out of print but if you can, find yourself a copy and delve in. Bonus points if you snag this early ‘70s edition. I love the cover of this book so much I ought to get it framed.

That’s all for this week. In the meantime I’m working on showing up more completely and unabashedly myself for the sake of my friends, my family, my children, and well, myself.

A Reminder (Okay Two Reminders)

Do something TODAY that makes you feel most like yourself. And reach out to your friends! Now pardon me while I search out a vintage copy of Rosa Guy’s masterpiece and a Casio keyboard.