One of my most vivid memories of my friend, Dotz, is of her calling my name at the Farmer’s Market on a hot summer day in Takoma Park. Dotz and I had met a few times before that day, once at the local yoga center, and again, unexpectedly, in Connecticut at a weekend poetry workshop where we took a couple of long walks together and discussed the workshop. 

But that bright day at the farmer’s market stays with me. I didn’t recognize the voice calling my name at first and then I saw Dotz, loaded down with bags, smiling at me and waving.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” she said in her cheerful way, putting a couple bags down to give me a hug, “I’m taking a personal growth class in the fall which I think you would like.”
When I expressed interest, she invited me to walk back to her house a few blocks away to show me the brochure. I remember feeling excited that she had thought of me even though we didn’t know each other that well. I had the sense of a door opening between us, that I was being invited to step forward into the new space of a possible friendship. 

That was in 2003. Over the years our friendship has gone through a testing and deepening process as friendships must, as we’ve helped each other navigate through our lives.
We did take that personal growth class together, and then afterward, started doing a weekly phone check-in session with each other that continued for six years. In order to do this and be friends in daily life, we worked out rules of confidentiality and clear boundaries.  So besides helping each other through tricky experiences of depression, insomnia, a relationship breakup and a big move, we also did things like watching a tv series together, going appliance shopping, and cooking dinner at each other’s houses.

For both of us, our friendship has taught us to trust and believe in ourselves and celebrate our places in the world. Dotz says, ”Seeing and holding our friend’s strengths with more clarity than she could see them, allowed each of us to believe that those strengths were real and then gradually we began to “have” them and claim them for our own. A deep sense of lovingkindness and caring became a natural outgrowth and grew into a sense of interbeing and interconnectedness that we could trust as one little piece of what we sense and appreciate exists with all beings.”

We found that being able to explore and now even celebrate our differences and be accepted completely by the other person has given us each a taste of unconditional love. There is a sense of balance and wholeness in recognizing that we are our own best friend first, and that the other person is not there to do our work for us or to complete us.  I am very grateful to have this and other supportive friendships in my life.

So I invite you to take a moment now to call to mind someone in your life, a friend, family member or even a beloved pet, who has touched and supported you in your life. Feel the warmth of their presence around you now, as you breathe in and out, and allow yourself to bask in that warmth.  If you have any comments or friendship experiences you’d like to share, please do.

cheers,
Eliza