My safe word is "Purl"

I have a curiosity about lifestyles very different from mine. I love the idea of communal living. I am perversely intrigued by the concept of sister-wives found in polygamous marriages. And S&M holds me fascinated.

So I was at knitting tonight. My Odd Friday Night Unitarian Universalist Knitting Group. Six of us who get together for hours of hilarious and warm conversation. Somehow we started talking about yarn which felt like we were knitting with steel wool and how only masochists would like this yarn and if we knitted something WITH this yarn we'd have to include handcuffs and the knitter would have to have a "safe word." In S&M circles, a "safe word" is given when the sexual play becomes a little too rough or scary- a word which can't be misinterpreted to mean anything other than "STOP." "NOW!"

I've been thinking about friendships alot lately. About what makes friends and how friends are made.

I'm lucky to have this knitting group. They're my friends. Good friends. We may have started as a church connected group, but we have gone way past that. Initially our UU church-related commonalities gave us a jumping off point. Our conversations, however, have become threads which we gently unravel from each others' lives. We don't indulge in pseudo-psychoanalysis. And we don't bare our deepest, darkest souls to one another while we sip lattes at our coffee house meeting place. But we share concerns about our families, hopes for our careers, children problems and parent problems and travel plans and, yes, knitting patterns.


Thisis the group of people to whom I'd turn to at 3 am in an emergency- (the 3 am call is my bellwether for defining friendships). I'd call these friends if and when I need moral support. If my car broke down and I couldn't find a ride. If I needed an air mattress for an out-of-town guest. If I need a recipe for an appetizer.


We knit and we laugh and we drink tea about every other Friday night. These nights appear in my busy life as a respite. I can count on finding a haven from chaos at least every other week.
When the world is spinning almost out of control, I know I can count on these Fridays when I can be myself with liberal, like-minded folk who share a love of knitting and good conversation. In a sometimes scary and rough world, the Friday Night Knitters are my oacis.


My 'safe word' is "Purl".

Seven Year Itch

I just read today that most people turn over 50% of their friends every 7 years. That means that every 14 years we have a completely new circle of buddies.



I know that it must be. And the reason why I know this is because seven is a mystical number.



Seven is the smallest positive integer to be spoken with two syllables when pronounced in English. Seven is the largest number of digits which the typical American can remember without prompting (hence, 7 digit phone numbers). Seven stellar objects in the solar system are visible to the naked eye from Earth: the sun, the moon and the five classical naked eye plants: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. There are seven hills in classical Rome, seven Sages and seven wonders of the world. We have seven days of the week. Seven dwarfs and Snow White. And Marilyn Monroe's Seven Year Itch.



Of course we'll have new friends every 7 years. And how those friends do change.



When I was a little girl, my friends, for better or worse, were kids who lived near me. If we couldn't walk or bike to each other's houses, we couldn't be friends.



In high school, my friends were those socially inept people like myself. We stuck together because at our little North Carolina high school, it wasn't too cool to be brainy and brainy was what defined us. Thrown together by eccentricities.

College? More of the same... except some of us had cars.

After-college friends, though, are a different story. I made 3 close friends in nursing school. And thirty years after nursing school, I can't find any of them. Kids took up alot of my time in my 20's and 30's and my friends, or rather, my acquaintances, were parents of my friends' kids and a few who I went to church with. We'd try to get together but often ball games and after-school activities and homework and our own jobs interferred with creating a bond between us.


UNTIL.

A few years ago I realized that my kids would soon be gone. My husband and I would be in an empty house. And I was planning to retire in 7 years. All of my friends at the time were people I worked beside. Did I have friends? Or were they simply people I bumped into daily?

When you're 50 years old, how does one make friends? How does one find people to make friends with????


My good friend Lynette is the best friend-maker I've ever known. She knows how to cultivate friendships and most of what I've learned as an adult about friendships I've learned from her.

Let people know that you like them. Join groups of people who share your interests. Go to church. Volunteer. And when you find someone.... call them. Often. Go out to dinner or a movie or to the Farmer's Market, even if only for an hour. When it's a special occasion, mail them a card. Have a party and invite every friend you have. Or would want to have.

So now I go to church almost every Sunday. And after 20 years of going to the same church, I think I've finally connected. I'm a slow learner. I belong to a knitting group that meets every week. In my normal workaday world I would have never met the wonderful women I've met at this free knitting group. I belong to another group that knits blankets for chemotherapy patients. I've registered to become a Literacy association member. I've become active in my professional nursing association.


When I was in 1st grade, friendships weren't work. Now they are. My little friends are gone. I hope these are here to stay. Longer than 7 years. They'll be worth it. Thank you, Lynette.