Best Friends: Part 2

We escalated and argued and as much as we gushed and giggled. We were passionate, and that passion came in the form of disagreement as well as affection. It was not unusual for verbal fireworks to flare without warning, brilliant in their colors and intensity, thundering overhead, emotional kaleidoscopes bursting and poppping, often about something and just as often about nothing. Still, for a long time each of us was quick to apologize, quick to reassure, quick to laugh again.

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One day, in mock exasperation about something now long forgotten, I told her, “You know, you should be good to me, because best friends don't grow on trees."
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"Yes, they do," she laughed. Within a day I had received her illustrated rendition of a Best Friend Tree. I cannot show you this drawing because even though I have it to share, it is not mine to share. But I will describe it for you. Doodled into life through a characteristic one dollar black pen, drawn onto 4 by 6 inch card stock, it began as a moleskine illustration of two women, both looking incredulous and impish, in their celestial pajamas, one pointing upward as if to prove a point; the other, her hands on her head in mock surprise. There is a tree between them, drawn in steady lines and strokes, large but not so much so that it could not be climbed.
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But this is not a tree to climb and this is not just any tree by any standard, because between and among its leaves there are a half dozen faces growing right out of its branches.

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“See,” she gloated, “I told you best friends can grow on trees.”
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I don’t remember if I wrote a poem about best friends before or after I saw her lovely silly illustration. I do remember that at first I wrote 12 stanzas but when she asked for one more, a baker’s dozen, I was happy to oblige. We were collaborating, we two, and it felt wonderful.

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Best Friends

1. They grow in the garden
Where forget-me-nots remember

2. They grow around two hearts
Willing to be tamed

3. They grow toward the sun
Pouring light in quiet corners

4. They grow under unspoken secrets
Finally whispered out loud

5. They grow on top of trouble--
An umbrella in the wind

6. They grow beside what’s possible
Rallying and inching it forward

7. They grow in special moments
Roots that aren't overturned

8. They grow around tender wounds
Healing tears on the horizon

9. They might even grow apart
But even then they grow together

10. They grow through the thickets of laughter
And the blossoms of being known

11. They grow over time
And in the flash of a moment

12. They even grow in darkness,
When it's all you can see

13. Best friends grow ever strong and forever tight
But they most assuredly do not grow on trees.
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Different cultures, different politics, different life styles, different geography, different experiences, different perceptions, different needs. We were two women who found each other one August day with no idea then that in that instant everything would be changed, at least for one of us; everything would be formed and reformed into colors and words that nourished and exalted but could not sustain. Every day, for hours, we talked and walked into the night, shared our silly secrets and haunting hopes, and we laughed together like there was no tomorrow. But there was one problem, and it never went away.

Very near the end, she told me the problem was that I was selfish and she was callous. Weeks or months or years from now, I will understand more, and when I do it may be that she was right about that.