The Perfect Blendship

I Love Lucy was a huge hit decades ago, during the infancy of television. I did not like the loud, aggressive pushiness of Lucy and/or the shrinking violet routine of Ethel, but I've always remembered a song they sang together that included the lyrics

If you're ever down a well, ring my bell
If you're ever up a tree, call on me
It's friendship, friendship, just the perfect blendship.

Forty years ago, I came to the desert. Of course, it doesn’t seem that long ago, but a quick journey through the valley at night reveals the number of night lights has probably tripled during my residency, and it takes time to build complete communities. About 40 years, I guess.

I first lived on the military base, and I can still vividly recall the journey from my all-too-brief sojourn on the coast to the desolation of the desert military base. We drove through town, but it was …shabby store fronts and unpaved streets … not at all what I had grown up with and defined as a community. The first five years were the worst, especially learning to cope with isolation, erratic weather patterns, and the military way of living life. After five years, however, it was okay because that’s the way it was, and there was no sign that it was going to change.

There was base housing and then town, and then the sale of the house for new orders that were mysteriously cancelled at the 11th hour, and moving back aboard the base, which didn’t last long, and then moving back into town. Meanwhile, there were 2 children and, eventually, a full-time job, and a marriage that should not have been, but was. It took time, but all of this evolved into my life, not what I had imagined, not what I wanted, and, saddest of all, not what I needed. After 18 years, the marriage ended, and when 30 years had accrued, residency ended, too.

As Robert Frost wrote, “knowing how way leads unto way,” my path came back to the desert after a brief detour that lasted about 18 months. If there was one place I didn’t want to reside, it was the desert (again), but that was evidently the plan from above, so here I am. I was blessed with both the education and the ability to work full-time, so I’ve been self-sufficient, but there have been times when I could not do this by myself.

And that’s where my 3 closest friends have made the difference: when they’ve needed me, I’ve been there, and when I’ve needed them, they’ve been here. The rest of the time, the time apart from the need, we’ve been friends, a word that doesn’t describe the relationship one shares with strangers who become family of the heart. Friends are the ones who don’t have to be in your pocket all the time, the ones who can live their own lives but share parts of themselves with you in a different way than they share with the other people in their lives, and you do the same.

We drove together to the coast to share lunch with the fourth friend. It’s nostalgic to page through the relationships we’ve shared, seeming almost to echo marriage vows to love, honor, trust, support in sickness and in health, and continue to be friends. There have been peaks and there have been valleys, but what brought our lives together endures the best of times and the worst.

As we recalled so many memories, some shared by all and some shared by others, it struck me how much we have meant to each other. We remembered names, faces and places, strengths and weaknesses, joys and sadness, all tied together with the strength of having shared it with one another. There may have been others on the perimeter, but we were the core, and it showed in our blendship, our blurring of the lines between you and me, which is the us of our friendship.

My retirement is not noteworthy to many people, but it is to my friends, who honored me in a casa by the sea. We may not have this time together again, but I will always cherish the memory and the friendship of the special women in my life and the day we spent together at the beginning of the rest of my life.