We flew in from the west over O’Hare, then banked over the Loop, studying first the close-together highrises and then
the suburban houses ringed with still-green grass. Our friends sat in the row behind us and we talked about how great the city looked if only those puffy white clouds would get out of the way. We’d had a great week playing golf and seeing the Texas Hill Country but it was time to return to normal. We headed for that lovely moment of touchdown, when you are back home where you belong, but not yet overtaken by daily responsibilities. My calendar for the coming week was full. I’d see my writer friends on Tuesday, my poet friend Wednesday, a counselor friend late in the week. I felt fortunate to have all that to return to.I’d been afraid that the leaves of precious fall, my favorite season, would all be down by the time I got back, a fear that my friend behind me, a dedicated gardener, echoed. But there they were in gorgeous yellows and oranges and reds, hanging onto the branches for all they were worth until we could get home and witness their departure firsthand.
It grew dark as we rode home in the taxi. Once we turned down our street and saw groups of trick or treaters and their lurking parents, some dressed up themselves, we realized we were in trouble. It was Halloween and if we stayed home candyless, we would have to hide in the basement until late in the evening. We threw our suitcases in the garage, checked for messages, even though there are few these days since email has replaced the telephone as the delivery method of choice for our friendships. We hopped in the car and went to our favorite bar for dinner and refuge.
Back home later, it was a smooth re-entry. We kept the outside lights off against Halloween stragglers and I threw myself into clothes sorting, old movie-watching and email catching-up. I slept like a baby, exhausted by all the relaxation, the eight-hour sleeps and languorous dreams of a vacation.
In the morning I woke up to a thud, and then another, and another. Sunshine streamed in through my tree-high bedroom window. I saw immediately that I had lost leaves after all. Every one of the bright yellow ones that had graced the tree right outside my window had fallen into a sad pool below, leaving small red berries visible against the bright blue sky. I remembered the benefit of this annual loss – you can see so much better once the leaves come down. I discovered a birds’ nest at the crook of two branches that I’d missed in my daily first gaze outside all spring and summer. Had I missed eggs and baby birds too?
Before I even got to the window I figured out the thuds. Dozens of birds swarmed the tree, nipping off berries. Robins, cardinals, finches and sparrows hopped, swooped and kept out of each others’ way, feasting like there was no tomorrow. It was a colorful diversity of birds, each with their own ways but all wanting the same thing – those berries. Some of the birds – drunk on fermenting berries? – lost their way and slammed themselves into my windows. I hoped they’d sober up before starting that migration, so they can tell my window from the open sky.
I grabbed my camera and tried to capture them in all their chaotic glory, but they didn’t cooperate – too much jumping around. So I settled for the better option, actually watching them. Because we like to see nature as human-centric, it was tempting to think of them as friends enjoying the feast together as we would, like bird Thanksgiving. But with brains smaller than jelly beans, they can’t manage that. They don’t have room for mirror neurons and consciousness and the desire to be understood, the fundamentals of friendship. They just chowed down and leapt from one branch to the other, doing their different dances.
I’m pretty interested in sorting out differences. As a therapist, I’ve always had to search through the surface differences among my clients to find the shared core of emotion and motivation and vision that allows for change. And as a writer I am taken with point of view, always imagining how various characters would see the same event so differently. In fact, if I don’t look out, I can get so wrapped up in examining everyone’s unique take that I forget to tell the story, or take so long that everybody including me has lost interest. Focus, I am learning, is a necessary antidote to this overload of empathy.
As a morning birdwatcher, I studied how each species looked different as they got the same job done. Years ago when I first started to learn a bit about brain science, one portion of the brain was credited with the ability to discern small details, like telling one species of bird from another. The next time I tuned in, the same part of the brain was described as the place where face recognition took place, and I heard the sad tale of a man who had lost that ability. As he walked down the street, he had no way to know if he was encountering his best friend or a complete stranger because he couldn’t sort out one face from another. Much embarrassment ensued as he struggled to manage this deficit. He truly couldn’t tell who his friends were, until he heard their voices.
As a friend, I am watchful for differences too. I have friends of many stripes. Differences in politics, religion, life circumstance, ethnic heritage, whatever, do not stop me. Being just like me isn’t nearly as important as being interesting and willing to share. This does not make me a good person, just a curious one.
I know that not everyone sees it this way. A long conversation with a friend last spring revealed that she does not have any friends who disagree with her, and likes it that way. I began to mention that conversation to other friends and found several more who said the same. During the political season I heard a similar tale from many more. They choose a cocoon of commonality and self-affirmation, secure in their beliefs together.
That’s a lot of comfort, but at what cost? In my experience, sad to say, people who stick to their own kind can become a little superior, and smug, and self-righteous if they encounter nothing but agreement. Oops. Have I said too much? Do I sound like a scold? My question is this: How do you grow and change and enlarge your view inside such insulation? What challenges you to rethink and fine-tune what you believe if you never test it against others’ thoughts and feelings?
My argument in favor of cultivating friendships with those who have differing views is this: If you hear an unfamiliar viewpoint from a person you know and trust, chances are you will consider it because you care about what matters to your friend. And you may even deepen your understanding of the issue by seeing it from another vantage point.
It is quite another thing if the only varying views you consider are the top-of-the-lungs rants of media pundits who get rich on the numbers of listeners they can recruit to their side. They trade on fear of The Other, and exaggerate the threat of other ideas, attributing evil motives to those who disagree. Predicting catastrophe is big business out there, and works to increase suspicion and split people apart, the opposite of friendship.
Give me friendship to bridge such divisions. The one ingredient that is present in friendship and absent just about everywhere else these days is respect. If my friend tells me a story of her dilemma years ago as a young coed, knowing that a classmate was about to have an abortion which she felt was “just about the worst thing,” and shares with me the helpful counsel of a nun she consulted, I can understand something new and appreciate how she was tested by that experience.
If my friend tells me that he would love to speak out on human rights abuses in his homeland but can’t afford to place his family in jeopardy, I gain a deeper understanding of what is at stake there and how grateful I should be for what we have here.
If I hear from my friend about a long ago summer when his all-white community turned into a nearly all-black community almost overnight, leaving his parents feeling that they had to upend the family and disrupt their comfortable lives, I am left to appreciate the work he had to do to overcome bitterness and resentment for what they lost.
Sure, there are awkward moments when I bite my tongue, and times when I don’t, and the endless internal debate about when to do each. And, like everyone else, I savor the times I can relax from that stress and hang out with people who largely agree with me.
As a young person I used to think I was 100% right all the time, which surely made me a real pain in the ass to people I disagreed with. Now I don’t think I’m so right. I aspire be right for me today, and I’ll try again tomorrow as I keep being challenged to consider new ideas.
The biggest change I’ve seen with my maturity is that now I’ve become a pain in the ass to the people I basically agree with, peppering them with comments like Wait a minute or Did you think about this or Here’s what my friend told me.
If respect is in place, we can tread that middle ground just fine. If not, if one person seeks to overpower and convert the other, the gulf widens. As I saw from the plane, it’s a beautiful world we live in. And as I observed about all those birds, if we can work around each others harmoniously we can all get what we want. And as I see my friends this week, I’ll find I have a lot to learn.
CBH 10/09
