How to lose touch

I'm hell at it. I've come to look at friendship and connecting with people as just another element of our disposable culture. Friends are like shoes. You get them because they're appealing and then you try them out for a while. Some last for ages. Some just don't seem as nice as they did at first. Still others fall apart before you expect them to.

It's terrible, really, to be so cavalier about people. But in a mobile society, where upbringing is in one place, college another, early adult life somewhere else, followed by another move or two, it almost doesn't pay to get too emotionally attached. Your cast of characters will change when your situation changes. If you were able to find an acquintance or two to have for dinner or see a movie with, you'll find them again. And in between, you just have solitude.

I could be better about this. And surely, I've met some lovely people over the years whose friendship I still value, even if it's faded, and who I wish I had back in my life. But I suppose I want my people to be in touch with me more than I bother to be in touch with them. I also can think of numerous examples of people who seemed to want to be my friend, but who then were willing to move on from me.

My first and finest example is a girl named Shannon, who was my daily companion during my first summer of sleep away camp. She was from North (or was it South?) Carolina and made even rainy days bright with her fresh peach lilt. We walked to meals together and hung out in our bunks, even though she lived in a different room. I remember a 'lovers' quarrel once, which we resolved when I decided to stop being a grump. After camp she sent me a lovely letter about her family and life back home. It didn't occur to me to write back.

I've always been lazy. Why put off today what you can put off tomorrow? At the heart of things, I think I secretly enjoy the suffering I cause: both to myself and to others. I want nothing more than to be loved and approved of by everyone I've ever met in my life. And if I can't have that - and who can? - oh the poetry that comes from longing for it. So why not make more?

And nowadays, of course, staying in touch can be an entirely one-sided affair. I'm updating my blog, does that count as staying in touch with you? I'm on Facebook, I have a website, you can find various snippets about me (and my doppelgangers) all over the web. There's the content you need without dealing with pesky human contact. In many ways, it's simply more practical. At the time I knew Shannon, the only way I could ever know anything about her again would be to stay in touch by writing letters. Now, if I could only remember her last name, I could google her and surmise the same details she might write to tell me. I could write her an email and ask for those details, and I could write an email right now to nearly anyone I've ever known. But why? You can't stay in touch with everyone, and sometimes, it's not as worthwhile as you might think. Sometimes I feel people re-establish contact with someone as an excuse to brag about themselves. And if you are motivated to simply rebuild an old bond, you might end up awkwardly trying to revive an acquaintanceship - so where do you work now? and where do you live? - when you could be learning comparable information in the more exciting context of a new friendship that doesn't have any odd historical baggage.

At the same time, I'm a creature who likes closure. If I'm not going to stay in touch with you, I want a good reason why, like a spectacular falling out. In truth, I've rarely ended a friendship on bad terms. They've usually died natural deaths because they were too weak to survive the change of geography, change of routines, or my lack of writing back in a timely way. Though my hat goes off to a few nice "break-ups."

A few years ago, someone re-established contact with me with such nostalgia and youthful fervor I even blogged about it. But his interest faded, his mind changed or something, and he decided he had to get out. After a summer of barely speaking to each other, I gave him a call, basically because I wanted to stay in touch for the sake of staying in touch, . We spoke for 90 seconds before he said that his phone was rapidly running out of juice, and that he couldn't even fix it by plugging it in while we talked. "Bye, Amanda," he said emphatically. Both of us knew never to call back again.

What does mystify me are the good friendships that fizzle, or never even get off the ground. The line is especially blurry with musicians, who I want to befriend for companionship's sake as much as for networking and name competition building. But what of those two singers I invited over who I genuinely want to befriend, who never returned the favor? Or the people I've invited to my wedding who I don't hear from - one old friend didn't even respond to give me her address, so I'm afraid she's off the list. Or that girl who I met randomly who has so much in common with me and was a regular companion for a couple of years, who vanished and won't return phone calls? Did I offend? Did they tire of me? I suppose I enjoy the imagining of those stories, the impossible search for closure. I may not have those friendships for countless reasons, but at least I can feed my imagination by writing their stories myself. I think people just don't have the interest ain investing in relationships that are likely to fade away for one reason or another.

But what I love most of all about losing touch is the romantic notion that the loving energy of a friendship never fully disappears, and may even be healthy and thriving in a parallel universe, or when we see each other again at the celestial get-together, or in our heart's most secret desires. Or in believing that we would always - always - welcome each other into our lives again.

O du Entrißne mir und meinem Kusse,
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!
Erreichbar nur meinem Sehnsuchtgruße,
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!

Du von der Hand der Liebe diesem Herzen
Gegebne, Du von dieser Brust
Genommne mir! Mit diesem Tränengusse
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt.

Zum Trotz der Ferne, die sich feindlich trennend
Hat zwischen mich und dich gestellt;
Dem Neid der Schicksalmächte zum Verdrusse
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!

Wie du mir je im schönsten Lenz der Liebe
Mit Gruß und Kuß entgegenkamst,
Mit meiner Seele glühendstem Ergusse,
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!

Ein Hauch der Liebe tilget Raum und Zeiten,
Ich bin bei dir, du bist bei mir,
Ich halte dich in dieses Arms Umschlusse,
Sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküßt!

--Rueckert

Listen to the Schubert song here!

O you, who have been snatched from me and my kiss,
I greet you, I kiss you!
Reached only by my yearning greetings,
you I greet, you I kiss!

You, given by the hand of love to this heart,
you, who from my breast
have been taken! With these flooding tears
I greet you, I kiss you.

Defying the distance that fiendishly separates us
and lies between you and me -
to spite the envious powers of fate,
I greet you, I kiss you!

Just as you always did in the fairest spring-time of love,
coming to greet me with a kiss,
so now, with my soul a glowing flood,
I greet you, I kiss you!

A breath of love erases space and time;
I am with you, you are with me,
I hold you in these arms, embracing you;
I greet you, I kiss you!

Morning Ode

I sing the 47,
Its journeys and its struggles.
I praise the great levi'than,
From Magazine to Ruggles.

We mortals hail its glory,
Elusiveness and greatness,
We marvel at its stature,
Dwarfed only by its lateness.

Mornings you rise with the sun,
Boldly trudging through traffic.
You squeeze your way down Cambridge
Streets, in turns nearly sapphic.

Oft I've heard thy dulcet voice,
As I've lain in bed slumb'ring.
'Wait for me!' I've cried in vain,
As you've passed by me rumbling.

But then, after many long
Waits in the street corner slush,
I treasure the thrills when you've
Screeched, stopped, and knelt with a hush.

Bringing me on board the most
Sacred of moving steeples,
Greeting me with the pungent
Stench of many squashed peoples.

A rock, a jerk, a tumble
And lo! Our destination.
Ye good drivers always drive
With the grace of a boatswain.

And yet you do me harm, I must confess.
Must you only bring me to the office?

And suddenly.....

there was one, and then another.

As if they had been there all along.