10 Years of Friends with My 11 year old Daughter:

a lesson in laughter and language and a higher consciousness

We are on Season Six of our ten year journey. Monica and Chandler are engaged. Have to say I teared up a bit. And now there is a wedding to look forward to. Why, you may be asking, are we doing this? Oddly, it started after a lovely wedding we attended in Portland, Oregon this summer. And when I say lovely, I mean there was actually a sign that said, “Feel the love.” So there was no messing around; this was a lovely wedding with bright, interesting, mostly very good looking people. Whether you drank or not, you were feeling the love by the end of the night. .

The very nice neighbors of the bride and groom that we had never met in our lives and who so nicely opened their home to us to stay the night of the wedding, were watching Friends as a family. “It is so well written,” they said quite simply. And I loved how they fast-forwarded through the sexual references, as my daughter and I have come to call them, while watching with their family.

Oddly, you’d think we would get sick of it – the characters, the predictability, the vague memories of what happens. But no, hasn’t happened. We do come across the occasional episode that we know we have seen recently and we skip those. We just laugh a lot. Annie mostly laughs at the physical humor, which is mostly Joey and Ross and Phoebe's funny faces. We asked her recently who she relates to most, she said Rachel. All about the clothes and the fashion. I myself finding my loyalties changing. We both agree, we will miss them when it is over.

And lest anyone were to think there is not learning going on, well let me set that straight right now. Just this week we did our own version of naming all 50 states in under six minutes. (Season 6 - The One Where Chandler Doesn't Like Dogs) Yes, between the excellent writing, the pop cultural references, and the naming of 50 states, we are growing intellectually from this experience.

There are a few mysteries. I can never tell what books they are reading, be it at home or in the coffee shop. Being a librarian, that just bugs me.
On the plus side, I am so looking forward to Phoebe meeting her future husband, Paul Rudd. I have always had a crush on his acting and that will just add some joy to the experience.

This is what I have learned. The best of friends stay the best of friends because they know who they are and love each other in spite of what they are not. Hey, I am a gal who has held grudges for most of her life. Ten years of a sitcom in under 4 months gave me that at Netflix prices. This is cheaper than therapy. Yes it is. Have I reached a higher level of consciousness, not even close. But I have laughed really hard with my eleven year old daughter. That is as evolved as you can get.

Once we went through an entire disc on a cold Friday night. We ate warm soup and laughed. I crocheted and we laughed. We cuddled and we laughed. I will take that over a higher level of consciousness any time. A lot more fun and a lot less work.

What I Learned From My Mother

I learned from my mother is how to love

the living , to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I leaned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like and angel.

like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

to every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your touch.

Julia Kasdorf

Boots

Lilac Fields

Ireland

NYC