Friends In Relation
I had the most amazing writing group this afternoon, with 12 of the bravest, coolest, most loving and honest people. They were so scared, because the work they are doing is scary, but they went on anyway, lifting one another up, wondering aloud. Every time I think I can’t stand one more ounce of bureaucratic bs, I have a group like this and then I’m like, Okay, let’s go. The call to this work is bigger than my desire for simplicity.
I just finished reading She Matters by Susanna Sonnenberg. The book is a detailing of various women in her life–the friendships that shaped her expectations of womanhood, her life of healing from being un-mothered. The scenes and characters are written richly. The story of each friend exists separately in compartments. I imagined organizing my friends like this–each character contained–and couldn’t quite wrap my mind around how I’d do it. I have very few friendships that exist in isolation, uninformed by my other friendships, by the overlaps. I want people to know one another, to love one another as I love them. I know people better when I see them relate to others, and try to make as much of that happen as possible. I have a new poem up,in the phenomenal second issue of Hematopoeisis, “A Letter to My Coffin,” (best viewed on a computer, the magazine isn’t great on mobile phones) borne of the National Gallery of Art writing exercise Even that poem, about my body being received at the end of its use, is about its relationship to others.
A friend I don’t know too well, but who I think is so great from a distance and from our occasional overlaps at writerly events, posted the poem below on Facebook today (be friends with poets on Facebook, your life will be improved) and it killed me. It is so so so good. We will use one of his poems next week, you’ll love it so much, I’m sure.
Monica
Monica
Monica
Monica
Monica Geller off popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S
Is one of the worst characters in the history of television
She makes me want to wash my hands with hand sanitizer
She makes me want to stand in an abandoned Ukrainian parking lot
And scream her name at a bunch of dead crows
Nobody liked her, except for Chandler
He married her, and that brings me to my second point
What kind of a name for a show was F.R.I.E.N.D.S
When two of them were related
And the rest of them just fucked for ten seasons?
Maybe their fucking was secondary to their friendship
Or they all had enough emotional equilibrium
To be able to maintain a constant state of mutual-respect
Despite the fucking
Or conspicuous nonfucking
That was occurring in their lives
But I have to say
It just doesn’t seem emotionally realistic
Especially considering that
They were not the most self-aware of people
And to be able to maintain a friendship
Through the various complications of heterosexual monogamy
Is enormously difficult
Especially when you take into consideration
What cunts they all were
I fell in love with a friend once
And we liked to congratulate each other what good friends we were
And how it was great that we could be such good friends, and still fuck
Until we stopped fucking
And then we weren’t such good friends anymore
I had a dream the other night
About this friend, and how we were walking
Through sunlight, many years ago
Dragged up from the vaults, like
Old military propaganda
You know the kind; young women leaving a factory
Arm in arm, while their fiancées
Are being handsomely shot to death in Prague
And even though this friend doesn’t love me anymore
And I don’t love them
At least, not in a romantic sense
The memory of what it had been like not to want
To strap concrete blocks to my head
And drown myself in a public fountain rather than spend another day
With them not talking to me
Came back, and I remembered the world
For a moment, as it had been
When we had just met, and love seemed possible
And neither of us resented the other one
And it made me sad
Not just because things ended badly
But more broadly
Because my sadness had less to do with the emotional specifics of that situation
And more to do with the transitory nature of romantic love
Which is becoming relevant to me once again
Because I just met someone new
And this dream reminded me
That, although I believe that there are ways that love can endure
It’s just that statistically, or
Based on personal experience
It’s unlikely that things are going to go well for long
There is such a narrow window
For happiness in this life
And if the past is anything to go by
Everything is about to go slowly but inevitably wrong
In a non-confrontational, but ultimately disappointing way
Monica
Monica
Monica
Monica Geller from popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S
Was the favourite character of the Uber driver
Who drove me home the other day
And is the main reason for this poem
Because I remember thinking Monica???
Maybe he doesn’t remember who she is
Because when I asked him specifically
Which character he liked best off F.R.I.E.N.D.S
He said ‘the woman’
And when I listed their names for him
Phoebe, Rachel and Monica
He said Monica
But he said it with a kind of question mark at the end
Like……. Monica?
Which led me to believe
Either, he was ashamed of liking her
Or he didn’t know who he was talking about
And had got her confused with one of the other
Less objectively terrible characters.
I think the driver meant to say Phoebe
Because Phoebe is everyone’s favourite
She once stabbed a police officer
She once gave birth to her brother’s triplets
She doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks about her
Monica gives a shit what everyone thinks about her
Monica’s parents didn’t treat her very well
And that’s probably where a lot of her underlying insecurities come from
That have since manifested themselves in controlling
And manipulative behaviour
It’s not that I think Monica is unredeemable
I can recognize that her personality has been shaped
By a desire to succeed
And that even when she did succeed, it was never enough
Particularly for her mother, who made her feel like her dreams were stupid
And a waste of time
And that kind of constant belittlement can do fucked up things to a person
So maybe, getting really upset when people don’t use coasters
Is an understandable, or at least comparatively sane response
To the psychic baggage
Of your parents never having believed in you
Often I look at the world
And I am dumbfounded that anyone can function at all
Given the kind of violence that
So many people have inherited from the past
But that’s still no excuse to throw
A dinner plate at your friends, during a quiet game of Pictionary
And even if that was an isolated incident
And she was able to move on from it
It still doesn’t make me want to watch her on TV
I am falling in love and I don’t know what to do about it
Throw me in a haunted wheelbarrow and set me on fire
And don’t even get me started on Ross
Right? It seems just stream of consciousness at first glance. She’s chattering on about Monica and then dropping her actual truths and fears into the poem in these little bites. Argh. So your prompt: write about a character from a sitcom you feel strongly about. Maybe someone who shaped your understanding of life or love, someone you thought you’d grow up to be like. Just go, one line after the other. Why do you feel so strongly about them? It’s never really about them, is it? You could also go in the direction of writing about your “enemy celebrity.” What do they symbolize? Set a timer, 20 minutes. Write and write and write. Send me your writing if you’re so inclined.
