SoCS — Make new friends…

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

Love is in da Blog

 

 

 

So this is the one-year anniversary of “SoCS” according to Linda’s site! I love this prompt because I feel so uninhibited  when I do it. I feel like I can write all the silly things that come into my head while being (and I owe this word to Linda also) insouciant. Pas de soucis 🙂  And in conjunction with Bee (another of my favorite bloggers) the topic of the day is “acquaint/friendship.”  I thought of this old Girl Scout song…”Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.” If I remember right, the second verse is “A circle is round, it has no end, that’s how long I want to be your friend.”

Girl Scouts…yikes that was a looooong time ago for me, but those old songs stay with you I guess…much longer than the “friends” I made there! Childhood friendships are not, for me, what they are for some. I see movies like “Beaches” where two people meet as children and then stay friends for life, but I just don’t have that. I’m not sure why not. Making friends wasn’t easy for me as a kid, I guess.

Friendship, that is, “true” friendship, “deep and abiding” friendships, are pretty hard to come by, I think. I got to thinking about different kinds of friends and friendships this week in contemplating Bee’s prompt. Ultimately, I didn’t really come up with much except random musings, which is why it’s perfect to have as an SoCS!!

The song says “one is silver and the other gold.”  So what are the properties of these metals that would make us compare them to friends? In fact, in poetry, friends are often compared to jewelry…pearls, gems, etc. I think it’s lovely, an expression that our friends are those people that we cherish, that we want to keep close to us, and that we want to take good care of and allow to shine.

Silver — So if friends are like silver, how does that look? It is a precious metal, rather expensive. So we spend to have new friends. We spend time, obviously. It takes an investment of time to make a friend. But what other qualities does silver have? Silver conducts heat and electricity rather well, so maybe as friends we can be conductors of our mutual passions, interests, and ideas? It’s very shiny when new, but requires periodic polishing to prevent tarnish. Tarnish is that black layer that forms on silver when it reacts with the air. It’s not hard to remove, and it’s best to just do it every so often. Over time, silver can develop a “patina” which is a soft lustrous surface caused by micro-scratches on the surface. It’s actually a desired characteristic! Maybe friends do this too. If we’re kind to each other we can form a “patina” of our little micro-scratches. Tarnish in itself isn’t bad, or hard to polish off, maybe that’s why sometimes we can pick right back up with a friend that we have “lost touch” with!

Gold —  What about “gold” then? It is even more precious (rare and expensive) than silver is, it doesn’t tarnish, it’s very soft and malleable, and it’s always been prized for its beauty. So maybe these friends which are referred to as “gold” are then more rare, more prized, but also able to change with you through the years, to be malleable to what life throws at the two of you? Gold is less reactive than other metals, so maybe these friends are like that too. Less “reactive”, less likely to have adverse reactions to events?

So why do we do it? C.S. Lewis said in “The Four Loves”,

” The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.” – C.S. Lewis

I think that’s about right. That’s usually how we find friends, even here on WP,  it’s about finding those with “common interests.” We search for posts or topics that interest us, and in so doing, we find “kindred spirits.” Sometimes they can become real friends, or sometimes they remain acquaintances with common interests. Which is a great thing, too! Part of being happy is sometimes just not feeling alone! I find the internet to be an amazing way to find that. Through the internet, I have become connected to people I would never have crossed paths with only 10 or 15 years ago. It’s a strange and wonderful world! I’m grateful to all of my friends, old and new, gold and silver!

All that being said, my best friend in the whole world is without a doubt my dear husband of 22 years. My friend and more than my friend, the one piece of “jewelry” in my life who is a true “diamond.”

 

This post is part of Linda G Hill’s “Stream of Consciousness Saturday”  and also part of Bee’s “Love is in da blog” !  Click and join!