1) a story about my first best friend, 2) a recent meeting, and 3) my thoughts on friendships
A couple I photographed in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer during sunrise
Renée
(The following is an excerpt from my memoire.)
I knew it when I was five. In Kindergarten, I had a friend named Renée who looked like Dora the Explorer.
She was a short-haired Mexican chick who seemed to make a joke out of everything. When she laughed, it was the kind that resembled a tree branch being pulled back. Her hands would be over her belly, then her spine would arch back and lurch forward with a THWANG. It was a slingshot laugh, as if she needed to exorcise the laughing hyena inside her. I wanted to be her friend.
It was Renée, whom, in the disciplined line of kids with our hands behind our backs, would be out of step and out of line, an anomaly on an echocardiogram. I, on the other hand, always cooperated and stayed in line. Sometimes, everyone else would ignore her. Here and there, I’d peek over shoulders to chuckle or return a smile, as to leave a joke acknowledged, because I knew better: unreturned laughs are the worst. When no one laughs, it feels as if no one is there. At the age of five, I accepted this lovely, silly odd friend. Where ever she went, my eyes followed, expecting an Einstein-tongue-sticking-out face or whatever mischievous endeavor.
One day, when lining up alongside the classroom cubbyholes to go home, I whispered to her to call me at 5pm that day and swiped her a crinkled paper with my landline telephone number. “I will be waiting,” I tell her. She looks up at me with incredulous eyes. She treasures the crumpled paper with my digits. “Yes, I’ll call you,” she promises.
It’s 4:45pm. I must start my scheme. “Má, I don’t feel good,” I moan. 5pm was when daily mass started, so I skipped church that day. She puts the back of her hand on my forehead (I warmed it earlier) and gives me a frown which is the pittance and liberty to stay home and skip church. She takes one long look from the door and leaves my room to cook for dinner. I keep a long and straight face. I wait several moments then sneak out of bed to the dining room. All clear. I grab the phone and lay out the swirly phone cord as if it were some hiking rope. Then, I disappear into a cabinet, squat in (I was a very small child,) and shut the door with the coil going into the wood. I listen for the phone to ring. I would accept it on the first ring so my mother won’t be bothered. I have my knees to my chin. A dark laugh bubbles inside me. Oh, how easy it is to skip church! The phone rings!
I pick it up, hold it to my ear, and pause. There’s silence on the other side of the line. I am at lost for words. “…Hello?” I whisper, “Is it you Renée?” A boisterous laugh is heard from the other end. I cover the telephone as to not even let a mouse hear. “Yes, hi Thi! What’s up?” I cup my mouth and giggle. I tell her I skipped church, but I don’t tell her I’m hiding in the cabinets. “I skipped church to call you,” I say, feeling all cool and rebellious. We were kindergarteners. What the hell did we have to talk about over the phone? I try to find words to say, but she wouldn’t understand the situation I was in. So I quickly say, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, okay?” “Yeah, okay!” “Okay, I guess bye now!” “Okay bye!” We hang up. This all happened in a duration of 30 seconds. An hour in church couldn’t beat that. Nowhere near.
The next morning at school, I see her while putting up my backpack in my cubicle. My chin gives a little ‘sup’ nod. We start to tell other students we phoned each other. And they all are in disbelief. Renée and I high five. Because that’s what friends do. They show off each other and make each other feel cool.
The first time I got bullied was in Kindergarten. My teacher, Mrs. Kosher left the classroom for a few minutes. A boy, Caesar, I guess whom felt threatened by my rising popularity, wrote four letters on a notebook paper and went up to me. He demanded that I say it aloud. I sound it out in my head.
“That’s easy to read,” I say, and I shoo him off.
“Then, read it.”
I pause, put my pencil down, and give him my full attention.
“Read it if it’s so easy then,” he insisted.
“Fff—uhh…fuh..”
He stands there with smirk. In my head I think, damn, what’s up with this guy? What does he want from me? Like, a churchgoer reading the first and second reading of the Apostles, I read it loud and proud—
“Fuck.”
My peers perk up their ears like meerkats. They rally around me. Caesar crosses his arms and commands me to say it again. Like a priest giving one final word at the end of his homily so the congregation could remember to go on and live in peace, I say it louder and prouder, “FUCK.”
I look around my laughing classmates. I meekly ask him what else does he want. The laughing erupts into slingshot laughs. These are not the slingshot laughs I like! My eyes start to well up.
“What does ‘fuck’ mean?” I ask.
Renée pulls me away from the crowd of hyenas. I am pulled to a corner. She settles me down, “You don’t know what that means?” She looks around. “Well, it’s a bad word!” she explains.
“I said…a bad word?” I redden up.
“It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it. Caeser’s a jerk. Come over here,” she pushes me over, “let’s count how many BoxTops I have. I can give you some for the BoxTop fair.”
“Otay.”
I sniffle. So this is what friends do. They have your back.
...
Another day was picture day. Renée brought her rebellious smile with missing teeth. I stood with my unruly hair and attempted a smile in the front row. I wanted to be where she stood. Although I did nothing but offer an ear and pay attention, she shone in the spotlight in our friendship and I was okay with that. She had my back all year.
The end of the school year was near. I aced my exam, was able to count to 100, and sang my class color song spelling “BROWN” with Renée and even stupid Caesar at graduation. Then, the inevitable summer came.
In the village, summer evening consisted of playing basketball or kickball with the other kids in the neighborhood. I opted to sit out on the white brick columns in front of our house and watch the other kids. I thought of Renée often. Perhaps, when we meet up again in first grade, I’ll show her how to play basketball! This is what friends do! They miss each other.
Sunsets passed. Then the stars would come out. I’d hold on to my basketball tighter then leave my white brick spot to retire to my home for dinner thinking of my friend. June happened, July followed, and August lagged behind.
I burst through the doors of elementary school to find Renée. I saw familiar faces. I asked around for her. I didn’t find her at breakfast, nor in the waiting line of first grade. When I settled into my home classroom for the year, the first school bell of the first class day of first grade rang. It dawned on me that my first friend, my lovely anomaly, had gone. She moved. So this is what friends have to eventually do at some point. They part ways.
…
2. Gosh, humans are so like puppies.
I recently attended this small panel in a club I’m in called Women in Cinema. We had two women industry professionals give us advice on breaking into the industry. One of the women pointed out that we should be easy on ourselves, because she remembered how awkward it was being in the age group of twenty to twenty-something year olds.
“We are continually trying to find that one person that we click with. And so, we tend to make lots of appointments with new people,” she reflects, “We grab drinks, have lunch, brunch, or dinner with friends, classmates, whomever that we kind of like and need to know more about. We are intrigued and hope that they are intrigued as well.”
The woman mimicked this ordeal by holding her hands to her face as if they were puppy paws.
“And we go up to all these people,” she explains, “and wonder if hey, are you my friend?” She turns to the side as if talking to another person. “Are you my friend?” Another turn. “Are you my friend?”
She went on about how we have a life ahead of us, and it’s good to make connections. But she warns that not everyone you meet will be in your life even if you want them to.
I cannot agree more with what she had said. In fact, I have already experience this often throughout my undergraduate career. I’ve made, hilariously, probably too much, miserable attempts trying to fit in and strike up a conversation with someone I wanted to be friends with. So far, I’ve pretty much kept to myself at times, hoping that the aura I give off will attract my kind of peeps. It’s the introvert in me. And so, I’ve been in solitude for a very long time. Sometimes, I am proud of myself and view it as a way of building myself and my artistic career. But at times, I have to fight the inner demons encouraging self-deprecation and find a way out of these spells of “down-in-the dumps”.
These being said, I like to believe my soulmate is out there somewhere, or my soulmate has yet to recognize me. In the meantime, over the past year, I’ve made a list on what I think of friendships.
…
3. On Friendships
Friendship is like the first phone text.
It’s the weird person that doesn’t go away. And saying okay, “I don't mind.”
It’s butting in, getting annoyed at each other, but hoping they do the same.
It’s taking each other’s shit and tolerating it, I guess.
It’s the feeling of going 90 mph, windows down, radio blasting, singing your heart out.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s confidential, a chestful of blackmail secrets, and inside jokes.
It’s owning our shit.
It’s sticking out for each other. Being vulnerable, admitting their flaws and congratulating them on their courageousness.
It’s an image of two silhouettes on a hill, looking up to the stars, and sharing our dreams.
It’s holding them in your embrace or lifting each other up on their shoulders.
Friendship is this ongoing battle of fidelity, a passionate Disney duet that soars up an octave at each turn they take.
Friendships are fights, knowing our weapons will be thrown to the ground for the sake of peace.
Friendship is finally understanding the meaning of certain words and idioms.
Friendship is pointing the spotlight on each other and being in it when they don’t want to.
Friendship is being on the back seat of a tandem. Trusting them to steer correctly while pedaling forward.
Friendship is a two-way street.
Friendship is being on the sidelines cheering them on.
Most importantly, friendship is respect on both sides.
But friendships mean being behind the trigger when they ask to pull it even if you don’t want to.
In fact, unfortunately, there are a lot of “you don’t want to’s” but it’s the transcendance of compassion that counts. Idk if that makes sense.
Friendships are bridges. Some stay and some break. Some are strong, some brittle.
Friendship is work and maintenance, the sound of hammer and drills. Some screws may be pulled out. You get sad when you remember that they’re fleeting and frail, such is life.
Friendships stay with you in your heart, wedged in there somewhere.
Friendship is love, hope, and heartbreak.
Friendships are what we live for.