Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Want to play? Want to be my pal?


Among other similarities, Arabs and Greeks share also this one: their perception of this complex feeling/community called friendship. And because families are small in Greece, friendship obtains even more powerful features. It becomes an extension of the family, a kind of substitute with the strength of blood bonds, but without the full-glory-headache of the practicalities that kinship implies (property issues or the fundamental drama of the relationship with parents and siblings as discribed in psychoanalysis). From what I have noticed, and despite appearences, friends there get more intimate. They do not hold hands but they share all tiny details and communicate frequently full reports concerning their most private feelings. They do not have the long kissing ceremonies that I notice almost every morning at work, while crossing the crowded alleys of our Uni, but they drive their partners (girlsfriends, boyfriends, spouses) crazy when the latter realize that the friends know much more than them about the emotional world of their "other half". Recently, I found a nice depiction of this delicate situation at the novel of Vangelis Raptopoulos, Friends. Even in terms of language the words φίλος(friend), φιλί(kiss), originate from the verb φιλώ (love, in classical greek, kiss in modern) and prove this almost erotic atmosphere.

So, the story starts early, the children of the neighborhood, boys and girls, offer the magical spell "do you want us to play together?" "let's be pals". Sometimes, in urbanized areas this may be postponed till school age, but eventually it happens. Easy to propose, but it establishes a contract indefinitely valid... Many questionable doctrines appear to safeguard the connection: "There is nothing like childhood friends", "Only in childhood we obtain true friends" and so on and so forth. Of course, the criteria for a child to choose mates are heavily conditioned: they live close, they are of the same age almost (you see, for a child two or three years of age difference make a huge big issue, and dig a deep gap) and sometimes it has to do with the social circle of parents who can facilitate this relationship or undermine it according to their own judgement.

In reality, I have noticed that early I found this framework tight for me. I did not keep my childhood friends and the very few ones out of them that are currently friends, they became connected again to me because of their objective qualities and affinities in thinking, feeling and behaving. Other than that, I avoid schoolmates, gatherings of alumni, these circumstances that they start and end with the chewing gum brand "Do you remember?". Even my college mates do not mean much to me. Especially the ones we got in fierce friendship during the first two years in college. Meanwhile, I discovered that I made my best friends later, much later even: Usually they are women (I find them clever and with deeper understanding), normally they are older than me, they are opinionated, sometimes politically active. Yesterday I found the text of Areti, a "new" friend now in Spain, on our website, and while reading her ultimate farewell to her neighbour Libertad, I knew why I love her blue eyes that they are both sharp and tender. I could hear her passionate voice breaking at some point. And through her text I saw the details of her daily world she had been talking about, but which I had not been always able to visualize.

I wonder sometimes how my life would have been without Pelagia, Voula, Ala'a, Mikhalis, Ioanna, Birgit. I think I would have jumped out the window long ago :) None of them is a childhood friend.

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Since childhood, friendship to me is related basically to relatives; my sister, my brothers and my cousins, since we form a whole tribe together, we had the time of our lives.. not anymore :-) Life has interefered with her magic wand and everything has changed, each has his own path now.
I had friends at school.. but they remained there, mere shadows still hanging between the walls of school.. I only kept Diana and Mariam, without whom I think I would have jumped out of the window as well :-)
Luma

5:32 PM  
Blogger Vass said...

It is one of the rare things I watch growing in a positive way since childhood, compared to childhood: the joy of discovering real friends on the way. (now the reflection of this on the dark silver mirror is: my panic to lose them without the farewell, the "adieu")

5:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Vas

I just stumbled on your blog through jordan blogs and was shocked to find Greek posts. Loving
it. My greek isnt the greatest but im working on it. Gettting ready for my Greece/Jordan adventure this summer :)

I share your view and dread the farewells with the best of friends.

Keep up the blog and posts in greek.

Read u later

10:41 PM  
Blogger Vass said...

Mikanos! Thank you for visiting. Plz feel free to drop in, να έρχεσαι πάντα, καλοδεχούμενος :) This issue with shifting languages and contexts is more complicated than it seems. I discover it gradually.

10:48 PM  

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