Coffee and Cigarettes

I was watching Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes and midway thorugh the film I thought about the friendships that I've had in my life. It was quite intriguing watching Jim's short stories of people having coffee and cigarettes. People meet for some reason but they really don't know each other as much as society would normally dictate. Lives are in disdain and good conversations are hard to come by.

When I was a kid, I always thought I'd make a good friend. I was so sure of it I felt it was one of the only few sure things in my life. In my first venture into friendship when I was about 9 I started out ok. I had a friend who shared laughs with me and shared the same weirdness that I carried with me. Then one day I poked this bun he had on a stick and he was so upset that that was the end of it.

To this day I find it hard to remember. It feels like it never happened. Maybe I dreamed about it? I can't even remember his name for the life of me. I'm such a terrible friend. I don't think I said anything to him when it happened. I just froze. didn't appologize, just froze. I did realize then that I was not a social kid. I never really got close to anyone else for a long time after that incident. You want to know what's funny? On the last day of prep school the teacher felt like giving us all a special ribbon. Woohoo everyone wins! I think they had to give each kid a unique ribbon. Most Intelligent, Funniest, Best Math Wiz....would you believe I got Most Sociable Child?

I still have that ribbon.

I think it was in the 2nd grade when I had my next close friend. It started out the same way. We could laugh at the same jokes and silly ideas. Both eccentric kids I guess. We stuck together like peas and carrots as they say. Then one day we hit fifth grade and everything just went away. We didn't talk anymore, no phone calls, no argument. We just outgrew the friendship I guess.

In high school I think I made progress because I was part of a bigger group (or bunch). Well not really a gang, just four or five guys who just happened to be together all the time between classes and sometimes during weekends. I don't even remember how it started. We just stated to hang out and that was it. After graduation, we tried to keep it together. But we all just had to live our own lives. I guess thats just how it works in the world.

I did have another friend in high school. Another loner who I spent time with when I was't with the other guys. I guess we shared the same serious sides of life. We had more serious conversations than laughs I have to say. We talked a lot about life, family problems, and how twisted the world was. Of course, the same end happened after graduation. I tried years later to hook up with him, just to catch up, but the time that had passed between us just couldn't find common ground anymore, even though it seemed it like it would make for good conversation. Sometimes it just doesn't work anymore.

I was hoping college would bring forth more promise. I was finally entering a coed university and maybe a bigger mix of people would do me some good. While I absolutely know by this time that I was really a loner at heart, I was not out to stay away from anyone. I was like a hotel. You want to come by and stay a while, fine. Have to go, no problem. Need a 2am wakeup call, no problem. By this time I had already discareded this false notion of a perfect record when it came to being a good friend. It's not realistic, I think. Life has proven to me that like a lot of things in life, friendship, like marriage, is non-binding. It comes and goes. And you don't have to blame yourself or figure out so much why it all works that way. It just does. The ties that bind that last just do so because they happen that way. That ones that don't can never be tied together the same way again. Time never turns back.

I made some really good friendships in college. And to this day I still have a lot of my college friendships around. Am I still Morrison Hotel? yeah, sure. Do I have something to write on a scrapbook under Best Friend or Best Buddies? No. And thats not to be detrimental to all the friendships that I've had in my life. I just don't look at it that way. It's like asking a composer if the last piece he just finished is the best one in his career. You never really know until you die. You live life as it comes to you. You are grateful for the friendships that have come your way and you politely say goodbye to the ones that want to walk away. If you try to hang on then you're just plucking leaves from a tree that no longer bears any fruit.

I'm just thankful that the friends who have come my way have reached out and have been grateful that I was always in that corner where they would find me. I wish that I could be the one who could charge a crowd and be mayor, but I'm just not that person and people like me are doomed to be the subject of so much misinterpretation. It's just just the way it goes, I guess.

(walking away, whistling intro to Singing in the Rain) ;)