“Friends forever!”
How easy we threw around those two words in our childhood as if blowing into a dandelion puffball. I uttered those words to fellow kids who showed me kindness through play. I wrote those words onto notes, scribbles and letters. I watched those words parroted on my favorite teen shows and movies.
How the winds of time carry those tiny dandelion seeds tethered onto feathery umbrellas places. Some on hostile environments that block the very possibility of roots, the seed withering to its natural death. Some land on fertile ground. Roots unfurl itself from the sheath of its shell to reach out, crawl and dig. But sometimes, before going deep enough for roots to hold fast, nature runs its course with change - a bird, a human with a shovel, a deluge of rain. If all the elements align, only then do those seeds take root, grow and bloom into the yellow flowers that dot meadows, that brings smiles to one’s face.
I can’t remember if I’ve even thought, or more so said those words, until today. Because my friends today were not all of the friends of yesterday. Some of those friends, who received the gift of those words, were not forever. They were friends of a specific time and space. Now that time moved forward, that shared space evaporated and our beings transformed by experience, the friendships are now, but a memory.
More often I think about the roots of friendship for someone whose uprooted herself twice in her lifetime, moving countries and rebuilding a sense of home. To find someone to turn to without the need to explain histories and nuances, someone who just gets it, who just gets most parts of you. Or at least you think and feel they do. To find someone who can equal parts judge and not judge you at the same time, who can call you on your BS and magically pull insight out of a hat. If making friends as an adult is hard, making friends in a foreign place as an adult is even harder.
I stand at the base of the mountain of expectations I place on myself and on others on who can be considered a friend or not and shudder with overwhelm. This on top of the already inordinate responsibilities of the fish out of water immigrant adulting life. I struggle with forging bonds with people who share the physical plane I now call home. Thanks to technology, I find myself reaching out to friends from my then home. Friends who’ve been there in what seems like, well, forever.
This made me think about the tarot’s friendship card - The Three of Cups.
This card, unlike the ones I’ve written about in the past - The Star, Justice, The Hermit, The Hierophant, is part of the Minor Arcana. The rest of the 56 out of the 78 cards, the Minor Arcana, which describe details of day-to-day situations we face each day, are divided into four suits - wands, cups, swords and pentacles. And the cups represent emotions and the bond formed in relationships.
The cups are filled shapeless, fluids, representing our emotions, ever changing with the ebb and flow of life. Often, these take the shape of the containers that hold it together in one place, prevent its runaway spread.
Three women heads crowned with flowers, in a what I imagine as a harvest ready pumpkin patch, dancing in a circle, raising their glasses in hand to the heavens. A smile and a blush. The sky bluest and as clear as can be. The energy celebratory and happy.
The raising of the filled cups, as is friendship, is two fold - yes, a celebration, but also raising another up when one is down. Friends provide further support to these cups. Their shoulders ready to catch the stream of tears from heartbreak. Their hands ready to raise up yours in celebration through school or career achievements, birthdays, engagements, weddings, birth or just the fact that you’ve just seen each other.
Oh, how I’ve blown the dandelion puffball of friendship many times. I didn’t know whether the seeds simply flew away, withered on unfavorable soil or took root. But perhaps I underestimated their power. Seeds I’ve scattered many decades ago in childhood, university, work have grown and blossomed into deep friendships. Despite the distance as many of friends in different corners of the world, our experiences managed to intersect. I sank into depths, but their hands reached out to me. I would not have survived without them celebrating my smallest wins and lifting me up when I was at the lowest of lows.
Our friendships may fade away into memory one day. In adulthood, life just happens to engulf us. But know that even if it may not be forever, but I am eternally grateful for your friendship.
What I am watching:
I am re-watching the Lord of The Rings trilogy for the n-th time to support my Rings of Power viewing. Of course, the #friendshipgoals of Frodo and Samwise relationship is so Three of Cups.
What I am reading:
I just finished “Witches” by Brenda Lozano, translated into English by Heather Cleary. The interspersed lives of two different women is a masterclass storytelling in the differences in class, education, beliefs, “jobs” and yet, woven into the sameness of being a woman in a man’s world. The thread of deep precolonial indigenous spirituality and healing resonates with the colonized mind of the Filipino me.