When did you last share time with a friend, a long, varied conversation, one where you slipped between topics as if they were perfectly honed and fitted dovetail joints in a handcrafted table, and at the end of the hour or so together, it stood there between both of you, sturdy, elegant, shining?
A friendship is a kind of perfect comfort shared between imperfections – friends are not blind to each other’s flaws, but they know that the other person’s decencies and wit far outmatch his or her failings. This too, perhaps most importantly, the best friends dispel a fear of betrayal. In your time together, confidences may be exchanged, doors willingly opened to rooms of your own that only a few ever see.
Friends remind us of how complex every one of us is and that we make a mistake every time we think we understand another too quickly. Nuance matters. When we come to understand that our friends’ complicated natures are replicated in everyone else, they may infuse us with a degree of sympathy for the twists and turns we see in those we do not know as well.
In this era that encourages isolation and resentments and rage, when one more political or moral abyss seems to open up each day, good friends are now more important than ever. They help us keep our humanity. Their quiet as they listen to us, their sympathetic eyes, their laughter with us – this is the true silver, not power, not adulation, not wealth. In a friend, we find a necessary grace.
