'Ya got to have friends

So sayeth the Divine Miss M

First some announcements:

I am so happy to share that The Bullet Swallower received starred reviews in Library Journal and Kirkus, with the latter calling it “mesmerizing and important.” Y’all - I drank so much champagne the night I read the review, I still have a headache.

My book tour is being put together as we speak, and as soon as I have dates and locations, you fine people will be the first to know. Ever since the writers strike ended I’ve been busy working on my very first screenplay because yes…The Bullet Swallower is in development as a feature film! I can’t say anything else, and of course in Hollywood nothing is certain until it’s certain, but it’s been a really amazing experience to get to adapt my novel to this different format. I think it must be like learning Spanish and then learning Portuguese….on the surface a book and a screenplay are similar and do similar things, but when you get down to it, it’s an entirely different language.

And if you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, please consider doing so. As a thank-you for pre-ordering, I give you a photo of some poor dog dressed as an Oompa Loompa.

Oompa loompa doopity doo. I left a present inside your shoe.

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When I was a kid someone bought me a cassette tape of Bette Midler’s debut album, The Divine Miss M, a really fun and sometimes campy collection of songs that show off her lovely and often underrated voice.

My favorite song on the album, after “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” (and “Chapel of Love” and “Delta Dawn” - for real, it’s a good album) was “Friends” an ode to the importance of friendship, that no matter what, relationships are ultimately what make life worth living.

As usual, Bette is right. Friendships don’t just make life more fun. Strong, enriching relationships can literally help you live longer, protect children from the adverse effects of being bullied, and even improve cognitive ability in older adults. We are social animals and we need other people with us when times are good and bad.

I’ve had a rough summer and fall. My father has had some health issues that necessitated a few extended stays in the hospital. This coincided with some buzz-building travel I had to do for The Bullet Swallower, meaning that I was trying to help and support my family from afar while putting on a happy face and chatting up my book because the world doesn’t stop moving just because we’re struggling. My daughter’s bat-mitzvah was in October, an event which requires, for those who don’t know, the same amount of planning and strategy as a wedding or hostile takeover of a mid-cap public company. And all of this went on while war rages between Israel and Hamas, a constant source of sadness and anxiety to me as a Jewish woman, a mother raising Jewish kids during a moment of unparalleled anti-semitism in the United States, and as a person who believes quite literally in the kabbalistic notion that all humans carry God’s divine light inside of them. Every death is a tragedy; God weeps at every one.

Friendship is not something that comes naturally to me. I was a socially awkward kid and often didn’t know what to say to kids at school. My parents were pretty private people and didn’t do a lot of entertaining, and so I didn’t have a ton of examples of friendship at home. But I did watch a lot of television and so I knew from shows like Boy Meets World, Full House, and even Roseanne, that friendship was the cornerstone of happiness for most of the world.

So I’ve been trying, for as long as I can remember, to add friends to my life. And I’ve been really lucky so far. I’m still in regular touch with all 3 of my college roommates. I’ve recently reconnected with some friends from high school and have been seeing them when I’m back in Texas. And when I moved to Massachusetts 2 years ago I knew I would have to make a major effort to make friends in my new town - something that’s not so easy in your ‘40s. But luckily again my efforts paid off and I now have a busy social calendar and some deepening friendships with some incredible people.

The wealth friendships have brought to my life was really apparent last month when I got to have most of my good friends in one room for my daughter’s bat mitzvah, something that hasn’t happened since my wedding.

Did I mention it was a costume party? Hi Barbie!

Likewise in the first shocking days of the war, it was speaking to friends that really helped me make sense of my complicated and contradictory feelings. Checking in with people, sharing experiences, and venting and letting others vent was one small way I could help. Being able to do something in the face of so much hatred and violence felt really meaningful.

In her masterful book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Jenny Odell writes about how human brains are actually not great at thinking complex thoughts on their own.

We think better with a partner, in conversation, our ideas getting honed by bumping up repeatedly against someone else’s. This is how we get Socratic dialogues, winning imaginary arguments in the shower, and this pretty good short book about five women arguing about Peter Sellers.

And if the argument is a really good one the “cleaning body” part gets crowded out altogether.

We need friends, now more than ever. In a fractured world that often feels like an ocean of tiny islands constantly drifting further apart, we need to hold onto the people we love tighter than ever.

Every Saturday in synagogue we read A Prayer for Peace. It is a cry for help and a reminder that we were not brought into the world for hatred. I will leave you with the closing words of the prayer which weigh heavier on my heart with each passing week.

And so,
we ask your compassion upon us;
raise up, by us, what is written:

I shall place peace upon the earth
and you shall lie down safe and undisturbed
and I shall banish evil beasts from the earth
and the sword shall not pass through your land.

So may it be.
And we say:
Amen.