I don’t listen to regular yoga music while I do yoga. I like folk songs[1] and sad songs, and that helps me stretch and breath into the movement[2]. So recently, one of the songs on my “Mom Yoga” mix came up that I hadn’t heard in a while.
“Hey, Kind Friend[3],” by the Indigo Girls[4], is an awesome song[5].
As I was stretching and downward dogging, I listened to the words again and it made me think – what is friendship? How do we find the people who will be good fits as friends? How do we maintain a friendship after the initial connection? Why do you meet and know someone, at work or through circumstances, for years and then one day – a friendship sparks?
The line goes, “Hey, Kind Friend, Help me forget where I been. Kind friend, help me remember who I am.”[6]
That, I realized, is what friendship is. A friendship is made up of these disconnected moments where I connected with someone and my heart alerts me, “That Helped!”
The lyrics go on to say, “Don’t know if I’m going to see you again. It’s ok friend.”
These moments can be short or long. They can be single instances, or they can repeat over weeks, days, and years. They can be patterns of low lights when I take joy from being together with someone, or they can be bright sparks that light up my heart but never return. A shooting star, not a comet.
I had to leave warrior-two when I thought about it, because it is so true. Friendship, these little moments of connection that seem to happen almost randomly, don’t promise a return to the mood. Ever. I mean, it happens. We do return to the mood with some people we encounter over and over again. A routine is established. But what if we only see one another randomly once? Does that make the connection less important?
The connection helped me remember who I am and helped me forget where I had been. That is a pretty awesome gift from one person to another whether it be a stranger or an often repeating connection.
What then is a circle of friends? The circle of friends that I have is around me. The circle of friends you have is around you. There may be overlaps, but in our mobile world of connections and disconnections, no two people really have the same circle of friends.
The other day, Husband and I were talking about 4 people we knew when we went to Purdue[7]. One of them was my good friend (M). Two of them were his good friends (G, C). The fourth was friends with my friend and became close two his friend(K), but I was never very close with her[8].
There are two more letters in this diagram[9]. J, in Husband’s circle and not mine, represents his best friend from high school who was not a fan of us being together.
What about S? Well, S was a real experience of this song. I met a Kind Friend[10] and we shared a connection as we talked for two hours between planes. She did help me forget where I had been, the bad parts about that trip and helped me remember who I was. It wasn’t that where I had been was bad, but it wasn’t good either. The encounter changed me. Subtly. Chatting with her over a glass[11] of wine was a moment of connection. I remember it fondly[12].
Being open to these random encounters can be harder as we get older. Just as true, letting go of someone who was a Kind Friend but no longer wants that role in your life, is harder as we get older. I suppose that is fair. So many other things get easier with time, something have to get harder, right?
David Eddings wrote in The Belgariad, where Polgara tells Garion, “We are all lonely. We touch other people only briefly.”[13] That could be a melancholy thought, but when we connect with another person, what comfort it brings! What joy we have in that moment and we can hold that as a bright spot in our lives long after the moment is gone.
In the middle of the song, a brass instrument of some kind[14] plays the melody of one of the hymns I remember singing mostly in the spring when I was young: “This Is My Father’s World.” From the first time I hard, “Hey, Kind Friend,” in 1996 until now, the melody of that hymn can bring tears to my eyes. Because it is so beautiful. Because it connects me to my childhood. Because it reminds me of something bigger than myself.
As the Indigo Girls refrain as the song closes, “It’s ok Friend. It’s ok Friend.”
[1] I am pretty sure I have said that before.
[2] Sometimes I think there is nothing very normal about the way I do things.
[3] https://open.spotify.com/track/5D49mI4ZVPdzllVBFFkdsY?si=7d6829a1cc77400a
[4] I love the Indigo Girls and always have.
[5] Yeah, I still use Spotify. Maybe a letter on that sometime in the future.
[6] Maybe you should listen to the song before going further. At least the first part. It is a long song.
[7] Where we met again, fell in love, and married.
[8] I mean, we are Facebook friends, so that counts, right?
[9] How I love the Venn!
[10] At the Denver Airport, not on a ferry boat bound for Victoria.
[11] Or two…
[12] I am also Facebook friends with her. And we like each other’s posts and sometimes even comment.
[13] This is probably a paraphrase.
[14] A trumpet? A French Horn? I don’t know. I played violin.