Friendship

Author’s Note: Last week’s news was the Platte River is dry, bone dry in places. Hearing this grief gushes through my body, shakes me to my knees. Is the miracle of ample water a relic of the past? I remember when the Platte was alive, slurping water as it coursed through its winding banks. This writing celebrates when the river was full and the sanctity of friendship.

Photo of the Platte River by Mike Stinson

Five women, old friends, are ready for a lazy river ride under a beautiful blue sky, on a cumulus cloud-filled day. Our brightly colored kayaks—two green, blue, yellow and red—serve as transportation for the morning. With the help of a guide, our group pushes off, bobbing on the water like rubber duckies at a carnival booth. We are to travel five and one-half miles down the meandering Platte river, paddling our kayaks, breathing out the little disturbances and annoyances that float in our consciousness. I wonder if there is magic in deep friendship.

River Scene
Platte River unwinds before me like a sleeping woman. Soft curves and her iridescent brown skin sparkle and stretch long and mysterious. Along the shoreline, my eyes can’t take in all the countless shades of green. Hundred year old granddaddy cottonwoods frame the muddy water like dark green eyelashes that wink and blink in the soft wind. A few scattered leaves on the aging Black Walnut trees shimmer yellow and chartreuse in the bright sun. Clusters of forest green sumac seem to change colors flashing pink, readying themselves for the party reds of autumn.

Being on a river one becomes intensely aware of all that is around. The air has a fragrance to it, not sweet, but ancient smelling. Bur oaks in all stages of life send up an aroma of sap and wet leaves; dead trees with decaying bark release into the air something raw and unclean like unwashed vegetables. Fish parts lay scattered on the sand. A smoky blue-grey egret standing on a sandbar turns its face towards the sun. Soaring high on the soft wind currents, a lone eagle watches. We must look like ants to him.

Deep Friendship
These strong and adventurous women have had a long history with each other—some for over thirty years—traversing together over time the complexities of work, family and relationship. During this epic kayak journey, our tight bond reveals what it means to work united and join together in the wonders of sisterhood. Eudora Welty said literature, history and poetry are drawn to friendship as a subject “…to discover, perceive, learn from it the nature of ourselves, of humankind, the relationships we share in the world.”

It is said that friendship tests us and brings us to the edge. One went over baptizing her in Platte’s dark waters. She was there and then wasn’t vanishing like an act of Houdini. Her dark hair floats like seaweed before dipping under. A chorus of gasps. All in slow motion, we’re holding our breaths, was it a dare?

The  circles of water become smaller and smaller until one arm rises above the lid of the river like the hand of an old clock stuck on twelve. Bobbing around in our little ducks, we fish her out, the water closing softly behind. – Becky Breed

Exercise for Living Creatively:

• Read “Happiness” by Raymond Carver.
• Much has been written about the topic of friendship in literature. Consider how these special relationships are an important part of the storyline: Ann and Diane in Anne of Green Gables; Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in Sherlock Holmes; Huck and Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; and Athos, Porthos and Aramis in The Three Musketeers.
• Make of a list of the friendships you have observed over the years. Or, make a list of individuals whether in storybook or in real life who form unlikely relationships. For example, recall the characters in Plainsong by Kent Haruf, the old bachelor farmers who befriend Victoria, a pregnant teenage girl.
• Select a relationship you want to work with. Reflect upon the defining characteristics of the individuals in the relationship. In what ways do they support each other? What does it look like to be loyal and trustworthy? How can you convey belief in one another? What’s the bigger story or poem they are part of?
• Now write or paint or sculpt conveying the strong bonds in the relationship. Let your art speak to you.

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