Friends

Here’s something you know but that I wish to set down: If it weren’t for friends, we would not get through it.
Right?
Right.
In recent weeks I have been privileged to spend some days traveling with a close friend, a wonderfully deepening experience.
Then I went to a warm laugh-filled reunion with high school friends, re-discovered special people. (I met my best friend in Uni High as we turned sixteen. Diane and I have been through almost sixty years together, love, loss, surprise, dismay, the beauty of a sustaining friendship...)
Next I reconnected with dear friends from a later period in my life, those of the twenty years when Gene and I lived in the mountains. To my delight, old friends introduced me to new friends. So pleased!
Last weekend, on Saturday I shared a cozy supper at Beacon (delicious pan-Asian cuisine) with old close friends, one of the rare couples who has not let go of this old-girl-on-her-own. Sunday, I was invited by a new friend to a potluck picnic in Rustic Canyon, introduced to more new friends. Splendid eats, splendid company under enormous old oaks.
In the midst of this shower of friendship, my eldest child gave me an extraordinary gift…his understanding and insight lifted a burden from my shoulders, one I had been slogging beneath for years. What better friend could a woman have than a clear-eyed son?
And then this morning. Uber-painful. Another’s anger and unhappiness splashed all over me, etched into my mind and heart, made me ill. I had planned to go off tonight with the first of my season tickets to the opera, third row center of the Front Loge to see Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love.” But I could not. I only wanted to be home with little Cakes, my work, the solace of my terrace garden.
I thought about making myself a martini…it was one in the afternoon, but then I realized that was a bad idea. Instead Cakes and I went for a walk and I called a close friend. I confess I enjoy chatting on my cell when I’m walking if I’m not listening to a book. I reached out, burbling, prattling, dumping, not wanting not to, wanting to shut up. Of course my friend was empathetic. Of course I felt better.
Ah then in my email came the unexpected invitation from a young friend to a Mac Cook-Off in October. Wowiezowie. I adore mac and cheese! I was charmed and grateful to be included. My spirits lifted the more.
Late this afternoon, I called another old close friend. She has just hied herself into a retirement community and is having a bit of a rough patch getting acclimated. Still hurting, I muttered about what happened this morning, couldn’t help it. My dear friend buoyed me with her incomparable Yankee brand of comfort and in return I murmured the most optimistic words of encouragement I could think of.
By tonight, on Cakes’ and my evening walk, I was pretty much healed and I walked along envisioning Nemorino pouring out his love for Adina…I will hear them next week…
For supper I polished off the last of the slow-roasted Roma tomatoes I’d taken to the picnic (the recipe given me long ago by my dear Susan). I piled them on thick rounds of toast, sprinkled them with grated Gruyère, sat down with my kir, and watched Charlie Rose with E.L. Doctorow. Learned something about writing fiction. Felt even better.
Gene was fond of saying, “Old friends are best.” Indeed. But new friends, young little dogs, clear-eyed sons, the prospect of buckets of mac and cheese, slow-roasted tomatoes, and Charlie Rose can also be the best while enriching one’s life, not to mention coming to one’s rescue…
Susan’s Slow-Roasted Plum Tomatoes
Oil a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Cut firm but ripe plum tomatoes in half lengthwise (remove the stem scar or not). Arrange close together cut sides up. In a saucer, blend olive oil with minced garlic (more or less garlic according to taste) to make a thin slurry and brush each half very lightly with this. Sprinkle with coarse salt and set in the oven. Roast uncovered at 300 degrees until velvety soft, about 3 hours…or turn off the oven after about 2 hours, prop the oven door open, and let finish. Grind over pepper and sprinkle with thyme leaves or fine ribbons of sweet basil or bits of rosemary, any herb you like—or none. Serve at room temperature as a side dish, mixed with pasta, or on toasts as a sandwich or hors d’oeuvre. They’ll keep beautifully in the fridge until eaten. Allow 2 tomatoes per serving.