#25 - friendship
I left New York for the summer, just the summer, I hope, nearly a week ago. My family was visiting from Cairo for a magical week where they met and loved many of my friends and experienced my very own version of the city. Having been busy all week, I wasn’t quite packed up, but I had until around 2pm the day of my flight to get ready.
My dear friend baked a cake, though. She had promised a [secretly, birthday] cake for a long time, and as resistant as I would normally be, she’s too good of a baker, and a friend, to pass up the offer. The little window before my flight was the only time left. Several more of my friends had asked to say bye, so, the night before, I spontaneously invited whoever can make it to come through whenever they’d like before 2pm. While struggling with my broken laundry machine, figuring out my logistics in Amsterdam, and taking care of miscellaneous errands, friends came in and out of my apartment, filling it with love and warmth and kunafa and humor and of course, the greatest cake I’ve ever had.
I thanked my friend on my way to the airplane and landed to her reply, “my grandma used to say Allah sends you your best friends in your worst times.” A few texts later was Love is Everywhere by Pharoah Sanders.
Over here in Amsterdam, I caught up with a friend who asked me how New York has been. I said it’s been good, half-heartedly, laughed, tried to deflect the question, but came back to it. I said it’s been tense. Here, dear reader, think of the news, extrapolate, and imagine me telling a few stories I can’t share on the internet. I suddenly switched gears; I said it’s also been great, though, I love my friends so much. I said my friend had a sweet, hilarious talent show rooftop birthday the other week, and a bunch of my friends came over before my flight, and I wondered how I could leave for nearly three months. Lucy Dacus’ Modigliani, written about her friend and bandmate Phoebe Bridgers, speaks of waiting for your friend to wake up in a different timezone and wondering: “how’s tomorrow so far?” I first heard it on the second day of Eid Al Fitr in Queens’ Corona Park, where, somewhat ironically, I undertook my beloved tradition of spending the second day of Eid completely alone.
Once, at a surprisingly long The National concert, both among thousands of people and again completely alone, I went through every emotion. I don’t remember why, or how, and my brain works in mysterious ways, but amidst the joy and singalongs and sadness and nostalgia and someone enthusiastically screaming “chandeliiiier!” a second early during Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks and the crowd erupting in laughter in the middle of a song that keeps repeating that all the very best of us string ourselves up for love, all the very best of us string ourselves up for love, and it’s true, we do, and irrespective of all that, I had a realization about how difficult it felt for me to make or connect with friends after the 2013 military coup. In Madison Square Garden, I cried.
I do not take it for granted that now, in the worst of times, it seems I have been blessed with the best of friends. That I can share heartbreak and helplessness and righteous rage with those I share love and warmth and laughter with. That I can hug tightly those I organize side by side with. And still, I will get overwhelmed by a little bit of drama and dramatically proclaim that I don’t need friends, or overstretch myself again and thus declare a solo year where I will finally give myself enough alone time, or call my favorite day of the year one where I just go to a faraway park to read and skate and listen to music and be alone.
But when I was at the park with my friends, performing to my family, just last week, when I read a book on the train this morning a friend lent me, when a friend cheers me on and holds my hand as I get back on the skateboard, when I exchange music recommendations, I re-learn that friendship is the greatest gift, even in its quieter tones, even across long distances, even when you’re at a park alone, even when you need a break.
This year, I’ve learned that this can mean sitting next to a friend on the subway, and realizing that your care for them eclipses any fear of Jena, Louisiana. This year, I treasured fighting and resting, mourning and laughing, in good company. I treasured pausing writing this, just minutes ago, and rushing to my suitcase, because the clock struck twelve and my friend asked me to only read her birthday card on June 16. I treasured impromptu backyard hangs, tag-teaming securing enough chairs at Qahwah House, no context Tidal links, more reels than I can reply to, check-ins when I needed them, space when I needed it. I’ve treasured discovering my own capacity for care, and love, and the slow ordeal of learning, not always very well, to accept it for myself. I treasured long hangouts, days where weeks happen, and simply working quietly across from a friend taking a regularly scheduled call, same time every week.
This, of course, is a playlist that revolves around friendship. Free, off Little Simz’ new album, has a line about loving people through change that reminded me of Hanif Abdurraqib’s There’s Always This Year book tour in Brooklyn last year. He said something about choosing to love your friends over time, to love versions of them you have not yet met, across life stages and changes. Attending with an old, now long-distance friend I hadn’t seen for years, I felt a relief, and a resolution, for years to come. So naturally, I lifted That’s What Friends Are For off a Hanif playlist about platonic love. Samia, who I will never pass up a chance to see perform in my city, wrote North Poles for her friend and fellow musician Raffaella. I’ve been fixated on her latest album Bloodless the last couple weeks.
I’m not sure there’s an album I fixated on this year as much as Friko’s Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here, though, a record that’s been a dear companion and soundtrack to my year so far. I love that For Ella, a quieter track on there, started off as a piano sample lead singer Niko made for his friend’s podcast. It’s actually about a fictional father-daughter relationship (though many assume it is a love song, which it can be, or maybe it’s about my friend Ella). Sundowner is an ode to friendship sung by the guitarist (Conor Curley) of one of the greatest, and most principled, bands of our time, the Irish Fontaines D.C. I loved seeing Greta Thunberg wearing their Palestine fundraiser shirt with Bohemian F.C. onboard the Madleen. May we all find the strength and bravery of its crew, and may the remaining kidnapped members be free soon. Often at a Fontaines D.C. show, in between their songs, they speak no words besides: Free Palestine.
Hamza Namira and Zap Tharwat’s tracks being on here is quite self explanatory if you speak Arabic, which I would recommend. As for Nation of Language, well, that’s the best band in New York, of course. Check out their stunning new music video for Inept Apollo, featuring Claudia, a sweet dog I’ve tried to befriend.
Anyway, here’s to friendship. May we find it, treasure it, nurture it. In the best of times, the worst of times, and all that’s in between.
10 songs
Love Is Everywhere - Pharoah Sanders
Sundowner - Fontaines D.C.
Modigliani - Lucy Dacus
North Poles - Samia
Fady Shewaya - Hamza Namira
For Ella - Friko
Friend Machine - Nation of Language
الصحاب - Zap Tharwat
Free - Little Simz
That’s What Friends Are For - Dionne Warwick ft. Elton John, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder)