When I was a child, my mother had an autograph book, in which someone had written:
Make new friends, but keep the old
One is silver, the other gold.
I seem to remember that she told me the person who had written it was a dreadful woman that she couldn’t stand, but that is beside the point!
Two of my closest friends here are people who came to help look after me when I broke my ankle. One was kind enough to push through her fear of offending me and ask if I needed my hair washed. I was feeling positively skanky, and was so grateful that she was kind enough to take the risk. The other waded her way through enormous piles of ironing that I was unable to do. I think she has since realised that I don’t iron much even now, but she is not churlish enough to draw attention to my rumpled appearance.
In the couple of years since my accident, we have become firm friends. We share the good times and the less good. When we were all going through a financial dip, we would take turns to host suppers where we pooled whatever resources we had that week. At Christmas time we get together and play silly games, like the extended families we don’t have here. The main difference seems to be that we are far sillier than our real extended families.
During the summer months we all go off for picnics, taking the guitars along so we can make music and enjoy each other’s company in the nearby Natural Park, or down on the beach. While we eat, drink and make melody, the numerous dogs we have acquired between us caper about and get filthy, coming back every so often to check for any fallen salami or biscuits. It is somehow a strange conglomeration of the youth club picnics we used to go to as teenagers, afternoons in the park with other young mums when the children were small, and The Last of the Summer Wine.
Can you tell which are silver and which are gold?
But I digress. I found myself wondering which of my friends were silver and which were gold. Surely it cannot be simply a matter of chronology. Even if it is that simple, at what point does a silver friend become golden? Or is time elastic when you are with friends, so that the mysterious alchemy happens at different times with different people? I have a feeling that up-ending my friends to check their hallmarks might cause offence.
My friend of the hairwash fame sent me something the other day that said something along the lines of “You know you are a good friend because I no longer feel the need to clean up before you come over.”
Could household dust be the Philosopher’s Stone of friendship? I don’t know, but it seems as good an explanation as any.