Hope changes the outcome of language...

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Friendship may be the most profane of words, carelessly distributed in social commerce, as if it were purchased and refilled at every corner vending machine. We reverence the term in one breath, then refer to persons we hardly know, or even just met as friends.

I am romanced by the idea of relationships forged by time, minds, and hearts united by unspoken trust – men and women who without thought or excuse drop any task to respond to one another’s call and count themselves blessed to know someone they care enough about to entreat so. I cherish the image of two long separated and traveled souls enduring the elements, overcoming obstacles, single-minded in a task to reach the other in need. They have long since accepted or forgotten flawed parts. Once united they embrace and weep the tears of friendship.

Perhaps I am to remain forever quixotic. Or, perhaps I doubt my own nobility in friendship. Whichever the case, I yearn to be a good friend and I want to earn the trust and acquire the patience necessary to forge a few lasting friendships.

We are revealed in rare, defining moments… vortexes of thoughtful choices. The rest, it seems to me, is merely interlude.

You, my friends, have supported me and sometimes carried me through my worst of times. I am sometimes embarrassed by my “worst of times,” for my difficulties scarcely cast a shadow in the light of others’ misfortunes who inch and crawl through life confined to wheelchairs they hardly caused or chose. Moreover, hindsight reveals my woes are mostly echoes of my own choices. Still, without prejudice, you were there for me.

These meager, personal words are also a product of a life brushed by “would-be, self-proclaimed” friends, who, in those rare, sometimes sacred defining moments taught me what friendship surely is not. They engaged a relationship disguised. Their smiles, backslapping, and embrace were methodically calculated and well-rehearsed. They had already sold short the stock of friendship. They were never completely present, and their wandering eyes were constantly scanning the horizon for another host. I am strangely grateful to them.

Sadly, we bear the deepest scars from wounds inflicted by trusted hands that strike in the most vulnerable places. Outstretched, trusting hands expose the tenderest flesh…

Perhaps I will now be a better friend, made strong treading water waiting for many a boasted friend that proved but a leaky lifeboat during storms. But cynicism makes poor fodder. Perfection is not my ideal. I seek simply to trust and be trusted.

As a friend once expressed: “Friendship comprises a rare recipe.  It requires intimacy, which requires vulnerability, which requires honesty and trust.”  Missing ingredients yield pseudonyms or impostors.  We need more Native American sweat lodges.

Through it all I remain convinced that the potential reward of friendship justifies the risk of disappointment. We are all complex beings of many parts. It is probably impossible to love and accept each part; but friends grow to embrace the whole. Through the few years that now comprise my life, I am grateful for my friends, many of whom understood friendship’s enigmas before I stumbled into their lives.

Thank you, my friends.  I love you and I pray we both will prove well in the defining moments that surely will come.

 

Rob Brazell 

Originally published January 2000
Updated January 2023

Special thanks to Trevor Southey whose work bridged my soul’s dark night between ideological death and rebirth to reconciliation.  He graciously allowed us to print an excerpt from a kind letter, words from a painting Sentinel Waking, and two of his paintings: Embryo II and Earth Union.

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