Show Me Your Friends & I'll Tell You What You Are

Somebody said that today.  "Show me your friends, and I'll tell you what you are."

A feeling came over me, and I'd be hard-put to describe it.  Exaltation. Awe. Humility. Wonder. Those would be some of the words, but they aren't enough.

Yesterday Alison and Suzanne, whom I have known for a long time, and who are very dear to me, drove up from Manhattan to have lunch, see my new home and spend the afternoon.  I introduced them to some of the new people in my life - women I have met up here in Rockland.  I was so proud to have wonderful friends like these, who think enough of me to drive nearly an hour both ways, just to see me, knowing that I miss my home and my homegirls.  Bright. Talented.  Creative.  Warm-hearted.  Gentle.  Kind. Funny. Beautiful, yes - that, too - but not just on the outside.  Real beauty of spirit and intellect. Women of integrity. Women of value.  Women whose worth is above rubies.

We went to visit another friend of mine - my screenwriting partner, Margarette Gulinello, who moved to Rockland a year before I did, after growing up in Harlem and spending most of her life as a New Yorker.  Margarette is one of the main reasons I even considered Rockland County.  I can see her now - nine months pregnant, literally in early labor (she birthed Nicky early the next morning, and I kept staring at her with rude fascination, fearing he would drop out on his head, right there on the floor) sitting in the cafe at Whole Foods on Columbus and Ninety-Seventh, munching on a salad and giving me a characteristic piece of her mind.

"Well, all I can say is, you have to be crazy, thinking about spending that much money on some shitty little co-op apartment in Inwood.  Chris and I got a whole house for half that much - and when I get home from work, I have a parking spot! Pfft!" With a snap of her fingers, she scornfully dismissed Manhattan.

I must have been hypnotized by magic of the pregnant lady.  The very next week, we started house-hunting in Rockland.

Now, here we were, at Margarette's house, her two small sons bouncing around like unusually vigorous particles in a cloud chamber.  Like us, she'd bought a fixer-upper.  The once-dilapidated split ranch is now a warm and gracious home, firmly imprinted with Margarette's personality and her passion for beauty and creativity.

Alison and Suzanne had never before met Margarette, but the embraces were immediate and the friendship was instant.  We couldn't stop talking,  We couldn't stop laughing and smiling and cuddling the kids and telling stories.  As it turns out, Alison and Margarette had even attended LaGuardia High School at the same time - Alison to study acting, Margarette to study dance.  Why were we not surprised?

Since yesterday, I have been thinking of the people I call my friends.  Some of them are writers, poets, painters, photographers, actors, musicians.  Some are lawyers, businessmen and women, entrepreneurs.  Some are professors, or teachers, or work in some other capacity at a school.  Some are social workers.  Some are activists - for the environment, for LGBT rights, for civil rights. Some are more than one of these things.

All of them are the kind of people who would go out of their way to do the right thing.  All of them are the kind of people who would stop to assist an injured animal, or intervene if they saw an injustice being perpetrated, or a child being bullied, or a purse being snatched.  I have been on the receiving end of unsolicited acts of kindness from each and every one of them.  They are, one and all, the kind of people who take pleasure in doing the right thing and in putting a smile on somebody else's face as often as they can.

And so today, when I hear the words, "Show me who your friends are, and I'll tell you what you are," my eyes fill up with grateful tears, and my heart with pride, and I think, "Oh, I hope so... I will truly try to live up to the amazing people I am blessed to have in my life."