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Special To The Gazette/ San Francisco
MEANINGFUL
RELATIONSHIPS
 once
knew a young woman of twenty-three. I've known her my entire adult life
-- that's almost 45 years. Early on she was central to my development as
an artist. In fact, without her, who knows what I may have become. The
people we meet, when we are young, can help to form our character, give
us strength and cheer us on through difficult times. They're vitally
important to who we become. True friendships are probably the most
valuable thing in life that we are given; singly they can represent our
reason for being. That's the upside, the downside is when our
friendships fall apart.
It's true, some people are only able to travel together through life
until the essence of who they are find separate ways to go. In love
relationships, that is often tragic. Something that no one is joyous
about. Something impossible to avoid. It just happens and then we move
along with our lives. We live on with only a shell of memories to
recall, they are analyzed over and over again. What went wrong? Can it
ever be salvaged? There are all kinds of questions that we ask
ourselves.
One thing is for certain, life is an on going process, like the
ticking of a clock, where there is no way to return to, once, what might
have been. A healthy person will continually re-invent themselves all
over again. Maybe not totally, but certainly enough to continue along.
That's part of our process of survival and it has been going on among
people for millions of years.
If you are one of the few who have ever lost a lover, someone you
thought was as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar, then none of what I have
to say will even register in your brain. Deep relationships can never be
put out of our mind. They are there, somewhere, maybe deep but
lingering, and every once in a while they will float to the surface,
exposing themselves to our inner vision. Suddenly, from out of no where,
we have a thought that is so crystal clear, that it could have,
realistically, just happened that moment! But then we rationally think,
no, that happened 40 years ago. Such is the mystical way of the mind.
It's true, our lives do take strange twists and turns as we move
along through time. What once seemed totally impossible, turns out not
be so at all. Some people have said, "We become our mother and father."
To some extent that is true, maybe not as an exact reflection, but
certainly in our genetic essence that might be impossible to avoid.
Certainly there is a genetic matrix at work here that extends beyond
our being. One that interacts with the friendships we develop, where a
sort of social homogenizing takes place between us. If it wasn't for
that, you wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about.
The young woman I referred to was an artist when she was young. That
word artist seems so trite, since everyone has so misused it so. No, the
young woman I speak of was exceptionally talented -- enough to stand on
her own, and that in itself is an unusual thing to find in any young
person today. But this young woman had separated and distinguished
herself from others of her age when she was young.
She really did have talent, and it showed in what she did. How
impossible that seems to me right now, to find at any time a beautiful
young woman with 'real' talent is so unique. The law of averages
is set against it. Not that it doesn't happen all the time, it's just
unique and hard to find when you are young. And that's what I though
when I first met her. There were those experiences I 'd had with other
women her age -- they had been disappointing.
She was not only the most beautiful woman I had known, she had
talent. Which made me wonder just how acceptable she found me? That lack
of confidence found in youth. Fortunately our feelings for each other
were mutual, which bound us together as close friends.
So close, in fact, that we were married into what seemed at the time
to me to be the most perfect of all possible worlds. While in reality,
ten years down the road lay such disaster, that we ended in divorce.
When it happens to you it's not so common as later you learn it is.
What is it that they say? Half of all marriages end in divorce! A
startling statistic, but not when applied to the resiliency of youth.
Well I, like half of you, fell victim to that, which gives us common
ground. Our friendships can reach an impasse where one or both parties
involved no longer can find perfect union, and then we have a break up,
leaving behind us only shards of what used to be. Only little abstract
fragments of memory linger on.
It seems too bad later, when we consider it, but the truth is such
incidents build better character, and help us to define ourselves for
later on. We learn through experience. Life is composed of trial and
error. If you are really going to learn to swim, at some point you're
going to have to get into the water. You'll never do it by sitting on
some couch! Falling down and standing back up again is one of the first
things we learn in life. Fortunately, the body is built in such a
flexible way to do that over and over. Certainly breaking up a
friendship is difficult to do, but we'll do it repeatedly, until we get
it right.
Whenever any failure of friendship occurs there will always be that
time for fixing blame. Was it me, was it her, whose fault was it,
anyway? Everyone makes a big deal out of assigning blame. We spend a lot
of time and energy analyzing who was wrong and why. But the real test is
time. Years later when we look back to see who won and lost, everything
seems to fall amazingly in place.
When I dwell upon the thought it seems frighteningly clear that we
get exactly what we give, and that's without looking for reward. It's
painful to realize that life is much more than we bargained for.
As the dust of life settles, each of us can see exactly who we are...
Harry Hilson c 2-2001
Copyright 2000 Artist Harry Hilson
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