Impermanence
“Practitioners have always understood impermanence as the cornerstone of Buddhist teachings and practice.
All that exists is impermanent; nothing lasts. Therefore nothing can be grasped or held onto.
To feel the pain of impermanence and loss can be a profoundly beautiful reminder of what it means to exist.”*
There’s a rhythm, a steady ebb and flow, to everything in life, even friendship. So many friendships prove to be fleeting. Some of my life’s greatest heartbreaks have been leaving my friends behind, because sometimes, in moving, a friendship is lost, or dropped. I always mourn those passings. To feel the pain of impermanence and loss can be a profoundly beautiful reminder of what it means to exist.
Belonging to several writing groups ensures that I am the regular beneficiary of writing prompts. To be honest, most lie dormant in my files; I can barely keep up with my own ideas. One of this week’s prompts was about friendship and, as I’ve written on this topic so many times, I nearly discarded it. But I didn’t, and I don’t know why.
The highlight of my week was having the loveliest zoom visit with a dear friend from Port Hope, who I’ve not seen (in person) since COVID arrived. Though we spent a happy time catching up on all our news, part of our conversation touched on the fact that she didn’t know we were even thinking of moving until she received our change of address notification and she couldn’t understand why here, why Kingsville. In that instant I knew I’d neglected this friendship — that I value beyond measure — abominably, and that I’d hurt her through my thoughtless oversight. How often do I take for granted the love and kindness of my friends?
It was a powerful reckoning for this selfish old woman…
A niggling thought lingered, nudged; I couldn’t shake the feeling and finally, realising what it was, I reached for this week's writing prompt again:
“Doris thought life was like a high-speed train where you kept leaving friends and brothers and lovers at stations along
the route. Maybe when you died, you walked back down the tracks until you met each of the people you’d lost.”**
Most of our friends have lived their entire married lives in the same home. A few have traded-up on one occasion, so they’ve lived in two. Not us. We’re living in our ninth home. Eight moves. Eight times leaving friends at stations along our route. This move, however, was much different than the others because, like that high-speed train, we hurtled damn-near to the far west end of Highway 401, to the 23km marker. Much farther away than ever before, from everyone we love, everything we knew and all that felt familiar and safe to us. To feel the pain of impermanence and loss can be a profoundly beautiful reminder of what it means to exist.
Isn’t it delightful to fantasise that when you die, you’re able to walk back down the tracks until you meet each of the people you’ve lost? Or perhaps you are reunited with them all in a huge gymnasium, or a UofT pub, or at Presqu’ile, or gathered around a huge bonfire with s'mores galore, or…. Just imagine the conversations, the laughter (and tears), the hugs and the incredible amount of personal news that might be exchanged! It’s a notion I know I’ll be clinging to for a good long while.
In his seminal work, The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes friendship as a virtue. He writes about the importance and necessity of friendship for happiness and contentment. He is right, we all want to belong, to be known, to be accepted – to be and to have a friend. We value our friendships for bringing into our lives support, encouragement, sharing and joy. Joy in both the tiniest and the most magnificent degrees. We value friendship for that certain je ne sais quoi that helps soften and ease the harshness and cruelty of the world around us.
I suppose that is why I’ve been feeling such a gnawing, desperate, yearning to make a new friend here in Kingsville. In a previous post, What Keeps You Awake At Night, I wrote: But this move is very different. This is the first time we’ve moved in our bubble, and I’m not making friends. It is becoming ever more worrisome to me because, deep-down, I know that my resilience has always been dependent upon those strong communities I build and being able to lean on them during rough times.
Forging a new friendship here in Kingsville would be wonderful but, as we sang in Guides, Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold. Which brings me back to my friend in Port Hope, a solid, 24K Gold friend, to whom a fulsome apology letter has been sent; it’s my fervent wish she can find it in her heart to forgive me. Our friendship was always as sweet as a daisy - can it be so again? Or will I be feeling the pain of impermanence and loss?
“Wishing to be friends is quick work,
but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”
[Aristotle]
’Til next time, y’all…
*Norman Fischer, “Lion’s Roar” magazine, June 2021.
**Sara Paretsky, from her novel, Fallout.