I'm in an online book group led by John Cuddeback that's reading Wendell Berry's book Hannah Coulter. This passage is one I highlighted:
"Like maybe any young woman of that time, I had thought of marriage as promises to be kept until death, as having a house, living together, working together, sleeping together, raising a family. But Virgil’s and my marriage was going to have to be more than that. It was going to have to be part of a place already decided for it, and part of a story begun long ago and going on. The Feltner place had been in that family a long time—since the first white people settled here. Virgil had taken his place, after his father, in the line of those who were gone and those who were to come. It was something I needed to get into my mind. The love he bore to me was his own, but also it was a love that had been borne to him, by people he knew, people I now knew, people he loved. That, I think, was what put tears in his eyes when he looked at me. He must have wondered if I would love those people too. Well, as it turned out, I did. And I would know them as he would never know them, for longer than he knew them. I knew them old, in their final years and days. I know them dead."
Now that my in-laws are both dead one of thing things I have noticed missing is having someone who regularly greeted me by asking how my parents and siblings are. No one else I see regularly know them or bothers to ask. Of course, being Bostonians, they didn't use y'all, but it did still feel homey to this displaced Southerner.
When I was in college my best friend's mom referred to me as her "favorite daughter" -- though she had two daughters of her own-- and I cherished that status. She trusted me to look after my friend and I was so very honored to be accorded that honorary place in their family.
This is so interesting, reading as Brit, as I have a dear Texan friend, who always asks “how are y’all doing?” and I have always assumed it was intended in the singular. But she is, absolutely, one of those friends who truly always asks about all of our family and vice versa – what a delightful revelation this has been this morning! 🙏🏻 Loved this so much, Leah.
Your last line amused me, because just this past Saturday, when reintroducing myself to another parent at the playground, I said "I know you as so-and-so's friend!" And after that exchange, we played a creditable round of "Jewish geography"--i.e. when a bunch of Jews tries to figure out what sort of connections they have in common ("your friend's fiancé went to college with my sister!"). Tellingly, I think, it can be just as delightful to find a connection through a friend as through a relative; these links serve to make a stranger more familiar, and they gain an identity in your eyes via a connection with someone you already know.
I'd argue that though friendship doesn't have the obvious signs of affiliation that family (name, features), religion (jewelry/clothing), sports team allegiance (clothing), and many other forms of public identity do, it still offers a very strong private or social identity. (This might be part of the attraction and value of friendship, that it doesn't require such declarations, but that's an argument for another time.)
Here are a few related thoughts, as I tease this out. First, when couples break up and get to "keep" certain friends, that is partly a function of identity; even if the friend had become close to both, often her loyalty to the member of the couple she knew first prevails. (Admittedly, this sort of sides-taking is rather childish, but it does seem to be commonly considered, if advice columns are any indication.)
Or take the fact that we often hear a great deal about our friends' friends, even those we are never going to meet. My friend in Oregon has a male friend struggling to find a girlfriend interested in marriage; because he is a "friend of 'Sasha,'" I have grown to care about his happiness, too. His identity as my friend's friend means that he now has someone across the country wishing him well. And of course, there are more concrete manifestations of friendship's benefits--you may offer money or time or advice to someone solely because they are a friend of a friend.
Or another example--I find the word and concept of "friend" intensely meaningful. I'm rather cautious, and I want to make sure the regard is mutual, but when I begin to consider someone my friend I do think of it almost as an acquisition of a new identity, with access to a level of loyalty, care, affection and forgiveness that I wouldn't grant to everyone. I find it deeply moving, the first time someone refers to me as their friend. It is not a descriptor; it is a title, an honor.
Isn't friendship is fascinating? To be a friend is to take on a new, distinct identity blessed with enormous social capital and even honor--and yet it does not declare itself to the entire world. It defines us not only to ourselves (as you put it), but to many others as well.
My son and I recently went to a family burial on the east coast. The gravesite has multiple generations, with more family buried a short distance away, going back a dozen plus generations. If we lived in that town, 'ya'll' would *mean* something very different than what it has meant to me. My grandmother is quite purposefully buried in a small plot in Northern Minnesota rather than there. In my heart my roots are in Minnesota, and 'ya'll' means my immediate family, sometimes my cousins, sometimes my city & state more broadly, sometimes a wonderful group of college friends, sometimes a cohort of fellow workers.
There's the idea of asking someone 'Who are you?' - and some folks respond relationally (so & so's mom, or sister or wife or clan) and some respond with their profession or a personal characteristic/quality. One thing I think it's worth reflecting on is *who* gets to be singular. Most women throughout our history have been expected to answer relationally, not personally. Being able to be both, or bounce across the spectrum, is much better!
Don't have time to write a full response, but just wanted to say I love the concept of "giving [friendships] a place of honor." I do have a few close friendships where I know things about my friends' families and life before they met me, and they're deeply meaningful to me. Building new friendships, growing the friendships one already has, and remaining close and involved with friends who live far away are all aspects of relationships/dependence that I think about a fair amount.
When I got married I noticed that I stared answering "how are you doing" in the third person.
I think I'm fairly unusual in my generation about asking how people's families and/or friends are doing but people always respond well and often reciprocate.
I'm in an online book group led by John Cuddeback that's reading Wendell Berry's book Hannah Coulter. This passage is one I highlighted:
"Like maybe any young woman of that time, I had thought of marriage as promises to be kept until death, as having a house, living together, working together, sleeping together, raising a family. But Virgil’s and my marriage was going to have to be more than that. It was going to have to be part of a place already decided for it, and part of a story begun long ago and going on. The Feltner place had been in that family a long time—since the first white people settled here. Virgil had taken his place, after his father, in the line of those who were gone and those who were to come. It was something I needed to get into my mind. The love he bore to me was his own, but also it was a love that had been borne to him, by people he knew, people I now knew, people he loved. That, I think, was what put tears in his eyes when he looked at me. He must have wondered if I would love those people too. Well, as it turned out, I did. And I would know them as he would never know them, for longer than he knew them. I knew them old, in their final years and days. I know them dead."
Now that my in-laws are both dead one of thing things I have noticed missing is having someone who regularly greeted me by asking how my parents and siblings are. No one else I see regularly know them or bothers to ask. Of course, being Bostonians, they didn't use y'all, but it did still feel homey to this displaced Southerner.
When I was in college my best friend's mom referred to me as her "favorite daughter" -- though she had two daughters of her own-- and I cherished that status. She trusted me to look after my friend and I was so very honored to be accorded that honorary place in their family.
This is so interesting, reading as Brit, as I have a dear Texan friend, who always asks “how are y’all doing?” and I have always assumed it was intended in the singular. But she is, absolutely, one of those friends who truly always asks about all of our family and vice versa – what a delightful revelation this has been this morning! 🙏🏻 Loved this so much, Leah.
Your last line amused me, because just this past Saturday, when reintroducing myself to another parent at the playground, I said "I know you as so-and-so's friend!" And after that exchange, we played a creditable round of "Jewish geography"--i.e. when a bunch of Jews tries to figure out what sort of connections they have in common ("your friend's fiancé went to college with my sister!"). Tellingly, I think, it can be just as delightful to find a connection through a friend as through a relative; these links serve to make a stranger more familiar, and they gain an identity in your eyes via a connection with someone you already know.
I'd argue that though friendship doesn't have the obvious signs of affiliation that family (name, features), religion (jewelry/clothing), sports team allegiance (clothing), and many other forms of public identity do, it still offers a very strong private or social identity. (This might be part of the attraction and value of friendship, that it doesn't require such declarations, but that's an argument for another time.)
Here are a few related thoughts, as I tease this out. First, when couples break up and get to "keep" certain friends, that is partly a function of identity; even if the friend had become close to both, often her loyalty to the member of the couple she knew first prevails. (Admittedly, this sort of sides-taking is rather childish, but it does seem to be commonly considered, if advice columns are any indication.)
Or take the fact that we often hear a great deal about our friends' friends, even those we are never going to meet. My friend in Oregon has a male friend struggling to find a girlfriend interested in marriage; because he is a "friend of 'Sasha,'" I have grown to care about his happiness, too. His identity as my friend's friend means that he now has someone across the country wishing him well. And of course, there are more concrete manifestations of friendship's benefits--you may offer money or time or advice to someone solely because they are a friend of a friend.
Or another example--I find the word and concept of "friend" intensely meaningful. I'm rather cautious, and I want to make sure the regard is mutual, but when I begin to consider someone my friend I do think of it almost as an acquisition of a new identity, with access to a level of loyalty, care, affection and forgiveness that I wouldn't grant to everyone. I find it deeply moving, the first time someone refers to me as their friend. It is not a descriptor; it is a title, an honor.
Isn't friendship is fascinating? To be a friend is to take on a new, distinct identity blessed with enormous social capital and even honor--and yet it does not declare itself to the entire world. It defines us not only to ourselves (as you put it), but to many others as well.
My son and I recently went to a family burial on the east coast. The gravesite has multiple generations, with more family buried a short distance away, going back a dozen plus generations. If we lived in that town, 'ya'll' would *mean* something very different than what it has meant to me. My grandmother is quite purposefully buried in a small plot in Northern Minnesota rather than there. In my heart my roots are in Minnesota, and 'ya'll' means my immediate family, sometimes my cousins, sometimes my city & state more broadly, sometimes a wonderful group of college friends, sometimes a cohort of fellow workers.
There's the idea of asking someone 'Who are you?' - and some folks respond relationally (so & so's mom, or sister or wife or clan) and some respond with their profession or a personal characteristic/quality. One thing I think it's worth reflecting on is *who* gets to be singular. Most women throughout our history have been expected to answer relationally, not personally. Being able to be both, or bounce across the spectrum, is much better!
Don't have time to write a full response, but just wanted to say I love the concept of "giving [friendships] a place of honor." I do have a few close friendships where I know things about my friends' families and life before they met me, and they're deeply meaningful to me. Building new friendships, growing the friendships one already has, and remaining close and involved with friends who live far away are all aspects of relationships/dependence that I think about a fair amount.
When I got married I noticed that I stared answering "how are you doing" in the third person.
I think I'm fairly unusual in my generation about asking how people's families and/or friends are doing but people always respond well and often reciprocate.
"your average deracinated atomized-individualist northerner" is presumptuous and offensive.