“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

Stephen King, The Body

I’m currently watching the Italian television series of these books that I read a few years back. The books, written by Elena Ferrante, have been quite popular, and as such, many other people have read them. In Italian it’s called L’amica geniale and in English it’s My Brilliant Friend. The books have universal appeal because the story revolves around the friendship of two people—starting from when they are very young and progressing on to their lives as adults. As is the case with most relationships in life, their paths take them to different places and the two are exposed to different hardships and triumphs.

Last week I was texted a photo of a photo that I was already plenty familiar with: it was taken in the driveway of my childhood home in the early 1980s. I’m pretty sure that it was my 4^th birthday party, because I am seated at a picnic table, smiling at the camera and have traces of chocolate cake on my face. Sitting right next to me is another girl my age, looking intently into the lens of the AE-1 camera my father was undoubtedly using. The perceived contrast between us is amusing—she is clearly making a study of what is going on while I am in my cloud of birthday happiness.

I didn’t plan for both of these two previous paragraphs to intersect at this moment, but the cosmic slot machine window has managed to come up with this intersection. I say this because the little girl in that old photo from 40 years ago is now visiting me here in Italy. 

Growing up in our Cape Cod neighborhood, you more or less spent time with the kids in your immediate orbit. The houses that are not only in close proximity to your own—but also those where you feel completely comfortable—those are the places where you tend to spend the most time. And the opposite is true for the kids who live near you.  

I get a fair number of houseguests visiting me in Rome, and for sure I am happy to have them all. But some visitors are easier than others—not because they demand a higher level of care and feeding to look after—but more because they just don’t know who you are at your core. For some folks in your life, you host them and are on your best behavior because you don’t know them that well. This is why it can be so uncommonly pleasant to have your childhood best friend come to stay with you so many decades later—even if you gotten the chance to spend loads of time with them in the intervening years. These are the very people who know where you came from, and they know what you are like at a very distilled level. 

In L’amica geniale book series, this coming-of-age story begins with two small girls growing up in a working-class area of Naples. They develop a kinship from their earliest days, despite their distinctly different personalities. They are both perceptive and whip smart—even though they react and are forced to adjust to their surroundings in different ways. As time goes on, you follow them as they change, seem to grow apart, but also see themselves coming back to each other into adulthood. Adulthood that comes with all of the baggage that we old people know so well. The two friends can’t help but be drawn back to each other, because they know each other so well. Nobody else in their world has this dynamic. They understand the context of their origins, and they also have a fundamental understanding for how the other thinks and feels.

The nice thing about such enduring friendships is that these are the only people in your life who see you for how you are. They knew what you were really like before you even developed a sense of self-awareness or embarrassment for how you were born. Me, I have always been a more inward-facing person, and my tendency to spend more time in that space frequently made me feel like there was something wrong with me. And my best friend always understood this. There were times as a kid where I remember hearing her verbalize how I was feeling to others in a way that was spot on—she would not hesitate to speak up for me because she already knew that it wasn’t in my calculus to do this myself.  Even if I wasn’t aware of it at the time, I always appreciated her for this.

As you grow older in life, it can be incredibly hard to cultivate these types of friendships. Heck, growing any kind of meaningful relationship at all can be tough. Most of what we know comes from the workplace and then our life admin that means all of the crap that we have to attend to once we clock out at the end of the work day. You can feel starved for this kind of love and support if you don’t have it. Family is great and incredibly important—but it is equally important to have folks in your life who walk a parallel path, come back to you every now and again, and allow for a few moments of a sanity check.

When you’re a kid, you fantasize that life will get easier when you become an adult. You can drive a car, you have your own money, you can eat what you want, you can go to bed when you want. The possibilities seem endless. But as an adult, the great deception is uncovered when you learn that adulthood is very well more nonsensical and baffling than when it was when you were a kid. So many mysteries to navigate—and now, as one of the “old people” on the planet—you don’t have as many people to turn to for answers. They’ve either passed on or the elders will tell you that they don’t have all the answers, either.  But if you’re lucky, you’ve got a friend or two from the old neighborhood who is still in reach. 

Not for one minute have I ever understood those old school teachers who would tell me that one day I would be dying to be back in school. “You’ll give your left pinky to be this age again,” that’s what one teacher told our freshman class in high school. I have never once wanted to risk neither my digits, nor even a fingernail to return to those days. But I do understand the elements of that sentiment. The remembrance of carefree times dancing to Madonna on the living room table of your best friend’s house. Or sampling a big scoop of mashed potatoes by her mom before you had to go home because supper was ready but you really wanted to stay there. These are the great memories—and while you don’t realize it at the time—they serve as building blocks for the rest of your life.  

So right now I’ve got a pretty amazing person visiting right now, and I honestly feel like one of the most fortunate people in the world for having her here. When life is hard or you’ve got something sensitive or perhaps embarrassing that you want to open up about—it’s a rare opportunity to have that person plop down on your couch and that conversation just opens up naturally. These are the people who are for all intents and purposes extensions of your family…. but honestly, in this day and age we can just call them plain family. 

That birthday photo I have of the two of us as four-year-old girls is pretty amazing. It’s so good that I almost want to share it here. But on the same token, it’s too good to simply be posted to the internet for the algorithms to consume with cold calculation (and further, I do not have her permission to do this sort of thing). The photo is a personal memento, and moreover I would say that it is personally sacred to me. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have this friend still in my life, and I know that there can be nobody else like her. Because we started in this world together, and we’re still doing our best to wade our way through. She’s not only brilliant, but she’s smart, kind, and above all just understands it all. 

I can only wish that everyone else may be as lucky as me and have someone like her while tackling this life.