HeadSong Sunday: You've Got To Have Friends

I don't often post on Sundays, since they are a day of rest and all, but I woke up with this song in my head. Do you know why? Honey, sit down, I'm gonna tell ya.

When I was twelve, I heard, for the first time, The Divine Miss M. I think this is the album that made me want to go into theater, because I became wildly obsessed with getting on stage to sing The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B". I wore out the groove on that song, I listened to it so much.

But there was another song on that album that I listened to: You've Got To Have Friends. It spoke to me of friendship beyond cool, beyond what I was wearing, beyond who got invited to the pool party. It spoke to me of the kind of friends I wouldn't actually make for years to come, but I always tried my best to be that kind of friend.

When we lived in LA, I made those friends. We made art together, we drank beers together, we had babies together. And when we moved away, they helped me pack. It was so hard to leave them. So, so hard. I still miss them. My friend Shannon showed up one particularly awful day while I was packing. I was weeping. Charley was already in Portland looking for a house, working his new job, and I was packing our condo myself, with Joe-Henry. I had so much help, but I was falling apart. Charley and I had had a horrible fight on the phone, and Shannon showed up, gave me a hug, listened a bit and packed up my kitchen, while I dealt with the mover who had come to give us an estimate and the exterminator who had come to test for termites. Shannon was my rock, along with Amy and Erin and my in-laws. They held me together with kitchen twine, and somehow I lived to tell the tale.

And today, today I get to return the favor, at least to Shannon. Because she and her husband and her beautiful girls, all four of them, are moving to Portland! Today! I will get to show up bearing food, and squeeze her and her family, because it's been far too long, and dance a happy dance because the siren song of Friendship has been heard.

Have a happy, happy day. I heart all of you, my friends - you too, keep me going. Though most of you, I've never met in person, I feel so grateful for your online presence.