Relationships
Thirty years, Cheesecakes, and Profanity.
Friendship born from preteen awkwardness, nourished by adult language and food.
This is supposed to be about connection, but I’m at a loss a to how to start. How do you put into words, a friendship that runs so deep that the need to be physically in each other’s lives, while appreciated when it’s possible, just isn’t necessary? A friendship that right now, lives in a phone? I know there is a story here, about three women who text one another all the time, who have a friendship that is built on love and shared history, and strengthened by profanity, humor and recipes. This is the story of a friendship built out of awkward middle school phases that lead to kitchen conversations, and more than thirty years of laughter, tears, and recipes.
See, I count myself beyond fortunate to have amassed some pretty phenomenal friends. At any given moment I have several group chats going with friends that span my life from childhood besties to newer adult friends where we chime in on events in each other’s lives, vent about parenting or work, and lift each other up. One group chat, in particular, known here simply as the A’s, has been a lifeline. This one is comprised of one of my childhood friends and her cousin who both live a timezone or more away from me and each other. We have a chat that is three years old and counting. While the chat is recent in relative terms, it is just one aspect, a modernization of sorts, of a friendship that started in the hallways and lunchroom of our middle school. It is the modern-day incarnation of what used to be phone calls, old-fashioned letters, or postcards.
The threads that connect us are simple, a shared history, our families have been connected for a generation or more (something we all only fairly recently became aware of), common interests, similar life circumstances, love. We share everything from profanity-laden vents about life, parenting, in-laws, and work, to current events, to recipes. We keep each other updated on day to day events in our lives and this is often the first place we announce major life events before they become facebook official (think running a marathon, a job change, a breakup, a move…)They were among the people I texted from the ambulance when I broke my ankle last summer. There wasn’t a damn thing they could do beyond offering to call their parent's assistance and be present via text while I navigated the ER, surgery, and a hospital stay, but their presence was enough.
Our chat thread isn’t all sunshine and support, well, it is, but it’s also rife with the kind of profanity that would offend most people. If you searched our chat, the number of times the words “cunt” and “fuck” and varieties of the way they are used, is delightfully offensive. It is a safe space free of children’s ears, where we can let go and let the cuss words fly. This is the chat where the term “fucktangle”, “cuntbag” and “cuntacular” are used on a regular basis.
This group chat has been a lifeline for all of us. We ask for advice and check in on one another, and to a degree keep each other in check. Last summer, when I bitched about the nurses in the hospital, one of them (a nurse) kindly reminded me that just like teachers, nurse morale has taken a hit and I needed to remember that. Yeah. I needed to be checked on that one, and I am grateful that I was.
They both live really far away, and time zone differences sometimes mean that we occasionally wake up to two of us having had a conversation while one of us slept. Still, when shit really goes down for one of us, we rally. We have proofread resumes, cover letters, and awkward, but necessary text messages for each other. Two years ago I was in a position where I needed a new car after a run-in with a deer. I sent links to the cars I was considering to the group chat. Husbands with more knowledge of vehicles were consulted, and when the time came for negotiations, one of the dads came with me.
The pandemic kept us from seeing each other in person for all of 2020 and most of 2021, their annual visits to our hometown where I live, were canceled. I was able to zip out to visit one of them albeit on a broken ankle during the perceived lull in the pandemic known as June 2021. It was a necessary visit where we reconnected and I learned the healing powers that gin and tonic, late-night kitchen conversations hold.
We stay connected in ways that feel physical. I have a connection in town who makes tamales, and when she does, I buy extra and leave them in my friend's parent’s mailboxes. I have also dropped off baked goods on occasion. My own kids know these houses as “the ones where mom sometimes takes food and occasionally talks about politics.” One of those drop-offs occurred just a few weeks ago as I was rushing to teach an after-school art lesson at the middle school we attended. I opened my lesson with that bit of trivia, hoping to impart on the students in front of me the power the friendships they are forming hold.
Last year we all went through a baking phase at various points. I was admittedly late to the party. Still, I was able to contribute a pizza dough recipe that has become known simply as “the dough.” Four ingredients, perfect proportions, and it works in all of our climates. It is quite possibly the sisterhood of the traveling pants of pizza dough. You are considered family if I share this recipe with you.
This friendship is one that extends beyond being physically connected. Even as I write this article memes and gifs fly between the three of us. They were already on winter break, home with their kids and I was riding the struggle bus known as the last two days before break, in an elementary school. As the break began, while sitting in a friend’s dining room decompressing, the chat continued. One of us was baking, one of us was eating salmon, and I was drinking a well-deserved beer with a local friend while eating little cheesecakes, a recipe we all make. We were all present/not present and it felt so perfect. Smartass remarks, pictures, advice, all of it woven undetectable by most who are outside the inner circle. As this chat thread rambled, I shared bits and pieces with my friend I was physically present with, and again it somehow felt perfect. We were all connecting through these sweet golden threads, a cheesecake recipe, love, probably a bit of alcohol on all of our part.
They know I am writing this. The three of us nearly in unison made the little cheesecake recipe and in turn shared pictures of them with each other. When I asked for permission to include those pictures in this article, they happily obliged and provided more pictures.
I think the hardest part I writing this piece has been that I don’t necessarily see this friendship as rare. It’s special, and something I hold sacred, yes, but rare? I hope it isn’t. I hope all of the humans in my life are lucky enough to have friends like the A’s. If gratuitous use of the word cunt, and sharing recipes isn’t their jam, then I hope they have friends with whom common threads, connection, is both shallow and deep. It’s the depth, that transcends multiple layers of our lives that holds us together.
Through this friendship, I have learned that there is a need for sharing the mundane and the profound, and sometimes the mundane is profound. I can’t make little cheesecakes without thinking about eating them in one of the A’s kitchens, both as a teenager and as an adult. I can’t eat them without feeling thirteen, or twenty-two, or forty-one again. I can’t share them with someone else without telling them about eating them in those kitchens.
© Sarah Backstrom 2021
