Tag Archives: Friends

Scars

We all carry scars. Physical scars, emotional scars. Scars from crazy adventures, scars from stupid decisions, deep scars from emotional experiences that changed who we are or were.

Sometimes the scars are small and non-descript. No-one else would know the backstory, even if they noticed the tiny scar. Sometimes they’re evident to everyone – particularly when trauma brings back that pain. The perhaps-out-of-proportion emotional reaction. The visceral re-experiencing of a past traumas overcome.

This week has been difficult. So many weeks are difficult. Some people’s scars, particularly emotional scars, were exposed by a traumatic event. Some of those scars are recent – not yet healed. Some are long-past but still bring up difficult memories.

Do we value the scars of our colleagues and friends? Not in the sense of sensationally wishing to know all the details, but in the sense of respectfully appreciating that the scars mean something – they mean, more often than not, adversity overcome and lessons learned.

There is a Billy Joel song called “Pressure“. The lyrics have often struck me

You turned the tap dance into your crusade
 Now here you are with your faith
 And your Peter Pan advice
 You have no scars on your face
 And you cannot handle
 Pressure

Some of my own scars run deep. Particularly emotional scars. There are things I have seen and experienced that have changed me. They have made me less open, less giving, less willing to try, to learn, to grow. It’s hard to move past those experiences and find ways to be open again.

Yet this tough week comes at a time when I have found – against all expectations – people who are able to challenge and encourage me to rediscover my strength and my humanity.

I won’t go back and I won’t put myself in those situations again, yet I’m finding, day to day, ways to put those scars and those experiences into perspective. I am learning to cope with the vicarious trauma of the work that I do, with the real trauma of some of those I work with and care about, in ways that are healthier and more constructive – with the constant support of amazing, strong people, some of whom are working through the same or similar challenges, who find the strength and humility to share experiences with me and help me find my own strength.

I am not sad about the scars that I carry. They are a map of journeys taken and the road less travelled and lessons learned. Respecting those scars and the stories behind them – my own and others’ – is a foundation for new journeys, physical or literal, with people who value past experiences and can see and share new paths.

The scars we carry do not define us; they remind us and help us to find new, better, sometimes wiser, ways of taking on the challenge of a life less ordinary.

Wedding Day

My friend got married the other day. She looked really beautiful. Her dress was flowing (with train) and soft with a fitted bust-line decorated with the most delicate embroidery and beads, soft straps completing the look. Oh, and the most awesome red shoes. Her groom didn’t look too bad either, with his smart suit and his bright red tie.

Every wedding is unique. Some are sophisticated and formal, some are simple and intimate. This one was full of special, personal touches. The ‘wedding planner’ was a friend and he and his team were helping out of love for the couple and a little bit of the sheer joy of events. Must of the wedding feast (and it was a feast) was given as a gift.

The cake – a main cake to cut plus many, delicious cup-cakes – was made by the bride’s grandmother. Her mother, the bride’s mother, sang a blessing for the couple during the ceremony. The groom’s father shared a moving and meaningful tafelgebed.

Even the memories were trusted to friends. All the guests were asked to take pictures and then pass them on to the couple, and also to leave a note for the couple on their tables. One friend in particular, who is rather handy with a camera, took a whack of stunning pics.

There were special touches for the guests as well. Each table was named with a Latin phrase (ideal for this lawyerly couple) and each phrase was relevant in some way to the guests. The table of debaters was ‘ad hominem’, a long-standing debating in-joke.

Perhaps it was these personal touches, along with a shared fondness for the bride and groom, that blended together a varied, diverse gathering into a relaxed, simple, lovely celebration of the start married life together. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Perhaps a strong marriage equally is sustained by the support and solidarity of a caring community of friends and family, made stronger by the shared memory of a gentle, happy wedding day. Geluk, Janine en Pieter en dankie vir ‘n baie mooi dag.

Old friends

It’s a quiet Friday morning. I’m sitting in a friend’s lounge in Grahamstown. There are clouds in the sky. Perhaps there will be some much-needed rain later. The flowers bob in the breeze outside. I can hear birds singing. It’s gentle. Grahamstown can be so gentle. This is not the Grahamstown of my student years. Nor is it the buzzing, almost-overwhelming ArtsFest town. Visiting here in the past couple of months, I’ve become more and more comfortable with that. I don’t need this to be a place of nostalgia. At least for the moment, this is somewhere I come to visit friends.

I spent last night on a friend’s couch. Nothing dramatic about that. And yet, when you’ve been so far away, there is. Not that I didn’t meet people and have amazing times in Korea, but it’s different with old friends. There was a discussion about it in the crazy week we’ve just returned from – a week of working together. It is always more fun to work with someone you know. It hasn’t always been plain sailing. There have been times we have disagreed. There have been times when we were barely speaking. There have been times of tension and times of fear and times of joy. This particular friend is one of the  reason I managed to get on that plane to leave the country and one of the people with whom I shared that amazing trip to Mozambique.

I’ve never been very good at being completely comfortable in someone else’s space. I’m a bit of a loner and I like my own time and place. I am comfortable here, now. Grahamstown now is people and place just as comfortable as an old, worn jersey you’ve had for years and years.  People I can know through changes and growth and not lose. There is something Simon-and-Garfunkel-esque-ly special about that kind of old friend,

“Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park-bench quietly?

How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friend, memory brushes the same years, silently sharing the same fears”

Simon and Garfunkel, “Old Friends”