First friend

My first friend, Sammy, turns forty today. My mind jumps back to the day I met the neighbors who just moved in: Sunny and Sammy. I was right between them in age, and I was at that magical toddler time when friendship might someday become more than parallel play.  I remember my excitement as they stood in the vestibule of our house; I wanted them to come in, but they couldn't because Sammy was allergic to dogs.  

So, we had a friendship that began with playing outside. Outside time is so rare now, but as we grew up, we had free roam of the neighborhood. We climbed trees and made squirrel traps. (Okay, Sam and Sunny climbed trees and begged me to brave enough to go up.... I knew I would have no problem going up but froze at the thought of needing to come down!). We collected berries to make paint. We went down to the sump a few blocks away, and collected pails filled with tiny frogs. (I wonder what this did the to market value of their house after thirty years of procreating in the pachysandra.) We even created a club to babysit the younger kids in the neighborhood.  This was my first marketing experience. The clubs name? Hug-a-Bug-a-Bear!

As we grew older, our friendship became a humbling and challenging element of my life, and hers. I know that I would not be the musician I am today if I had not had Sam to compete with, and later to play with. I know I would not have survived high school pit orchestra rehearsals without her laughter. Musically, we were matched. Athletically? Not so much. 

Sam could do anything with her body. She played on the Little League team. She knew how to hammer nails that would go in straight... The FIRST time! (and the second and the third...) When it came to bicycle riding, her stunts were so impressive that she was able to lead a group of neighborhood boys in an exclusive TBirds club. I never was able to pass the tests to join.  However, I have always been one year, two months, and twenty five years older than she is. (Note: Sam is a foot taller than I am. We started out the same height, but I just grew wider.)

Sam was (and is) smart, but she also had common sense. She knew how to put air in tires even before getting her license. She knew how to order soda at the local 7 Up. (Apparently, you don't just ask for a small or a medium; it's a Big Gulp or something like that...). She knew not to believe her sister who tried to preach that Stop Signs with a white rim are optional.

Growing up isn't easy, and Sam and I had our fair share of intensity. First it was my fear of storms. I hated when the electricity went out, and it soon became a tradition that her dad would come to get me and we would all play Monopoly until the power was restored. Then there were the late night chats on the stoop of our house or on the corner between our houses. We had our fair share of late night studying sessions and cramming panic moments. I hope I was as supportive of her when her parents separated as she was of me when my sister's health was failing.

I've always felt privileged to know Sam as  a playmate and friend, and not just as the little girl with allergies who wore mittens to avoid scratching or the tall basketball player who chose Amherst over professional ball. 

But something really stunning came up when I first visited her in her grownup life in California.  I realized that we had never spoken about the big stuff. 

Growing up as a minority in a conservative town, I knew not to talk about politics or religion. I didn't share with my classmates that I preferred the New York Times to Newsday. In fact, I shared none of my early activist tendencies with most of my Garden City friends...at least not intentionally. It is a little hard to bridle my wild spirit....

When I saw Sam for the first time on her own turf, when I met her as the grown-up she chose to become rather than the early bedtime girl she was expected to be, when I saw her books and magazines and travel souvenirs, I realized that we were likeminded in more ways than simply building snowmen together.  I realized Sam goes above and beyond what I could ever do in terms of outreach. She risks life and limb, or at least asthmatic lungs, to help those in need. You wouldn't find me helping out in  hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. Sam, on the other hand, jumped to help... that's who she is.

We live on opposite sides of the continent now, but when we meet, it is not long before we end up having conversations worthy of an audience of spring fireflies.  We laugh uncontrollably and explore abandoned railroad trails and esoteric museums. Sometimes we do both at the same time!  We enter violent games of Boggle and cuddle up to watch films.  Together, we are three and thirteen and thirty.

Now, Sammy is forty.  We may not be blowing out the candles together or setting up for a sweet sixteen party together (she had to teach me the YMCA dance!).... But we are connected for life.  That is true friendship.

Happy birthday, Sam!