Messy but fun
Encounters with friendship
In some ways, the meeting places in our world are a window into the private lives and hopes of the people who gather there. I’ve always found Bridge Street Café to be such a place. Anyone who spends a bit of time there will start to become familiar with the various drinks and snacks available. More than that, they will become familiar with the people: the staff, the folks intently focused on their laptops, the friends having tea together, the unofficial town council meetings.
Early in May, I was at the café, reading a book, waiting to meet a friend for my weekly chance to speak my second language. While perusing the book, I noticed two folks join me on the patio in the sunshine, each with some vanilla gelato. They were, as I found out by listening a bit, a young lady and her great-grandfather. She seemed, as far as I could tell, to be the tidy type. Her small pink boots matched her great-grandfather’s pink shirt, but her concern for keeping the gelato off the table was in stark contrast with his carefree joie de vivre, although he acquiesced and fetched some napkins. Troubled by the sticky mess, she commented “It’s so messy!” He smiled and said “Yes, but it’s fun too.”
The two of them unwittingly taught me a living lesson in love and relationships. Beyond their obvious enjoyment of each other’s company and their exemplary friendship across four generations, their comments shed light on some truths about relationships. I remember first coming here to Mount Allison, trying to hit the ground running in making friends. I have moved several times, through several provinces and ecosystems, but Mount Allison was one of the first places I really tried to jump into friendships and not wait for it to come to me. The rewards were great, but it wasn’t easy.
As you make some friends and learn their quirks and their faults, you realize that relationships are messy. As you see their love and joy in getting to know you, you realize that relationships are fun, rewarding, and even deeply fulfilling. People are complex — much more so than gelato or academics or the new Webmail. It’s only when you realize that double-edge to friendships that you can appreciate their fullness. Friendships, as much as textbooks, are what have really educated us here at Mount Allison.
I’m not graduating this year, but I have many friends who are. I was remarking to one of my graduating housemates that I’m glad to have many of those ‘back when I was in college’ stories — stories that more often than not revolve around the friends and fun we’ve had together, rather than the grades and academic work we slogged through. Two such memories that I have are of watching movies with friends: Up In The Air, and I Heart Huckabee’s. George Clooney, in Up In The Air, remarked to another character that as you think back on your favourite memories, you are rarely alone in those stories. The French philosophers in I Heart Huckabee’s talked about the whole world being connected — it’s all part of the same sheet of fabric, if you will. Although neither movie was meant to be taken so seriously — just as wiping up gelato wasn’t meant as a life lesson — community and relationships really are part of the fabric of our lives. The friends with whom I watched those films, and all the friends I’ve made here at Mount Allison, are part of that community, that fabric that connects me, and all of us, to each other.
Living a lifestyle of friendship is perhaps one of the most important things I will take away from this school when I leave, and I know the same is true for many of you. As you who are graduating fill up your suitcases and continue your journey, pack some gelato, and remember to make some new friends.
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