Starting here, and with other highlights from my summer reading jag, I thought I’d attempt to map “The Anatomy of the Super Friend.”

Franco identifies the “secure-stable attachment type” as the defining characteristic of a super friend. Based in early childhood experience, caregivers who offer warmth and validation create the sense of security that influences our feelings of self-worth and trust in others. Cold and overprotective caregivers result in “anxious” or “avoidant” attachment types that may affect friendship patterns. Franco allows that it’s not only parents and primary caregivers but other relationships that shape our experience over time.

Here the literature on emotional intelligence – the ability to recognize and manage our emotions and our relationships with others – becomes helpful. Super Friends move from a place of self-awareness, possessing a solid sense of self -- gifts and foibles -- and bring double doses of compassion to themselves and others.

From Franco’s reading of the research, she finds that we often underestimate our own likability and assume others do not like us. Super Friends’ sense of self, trust and positive outlook allows them to overcome reticence to reach out.

This strong sense of self means they move in and out of the spotlight with ease. They are invariably good listeners who can read a room, knowing how to make room for the big feelings and backing off when space is required.

Next to Franco, Julie Beck’s “Six Forces that Fuel Friendship” is a great help in mapping friendship’s anatomy: Accumulation, Attention, Intention, Ritual, Imagination and Grace. The clearest expression of a Super Friend’s expression of attention and intention is the hospital visit: I can remember not knowing where I stood with someone until they surprised me with a visit to my hospital bed. When footsteps accompanied the warm face of a friend is where intention and presence far outweighed the time spent or words spoken. Our friendship deepened after that.

The Super Friend initiates, connects and maintains friendships. People I interviewed who maintain strong group friendships were quick to identify the group’s “culture guardian.” Chris is known for initiating an email string of birthday wishes among a group of our high school friends, perhaps with a photo or an inside joke reference from long ago. Tom, another friend, shared with me how on group camping trips, as others are focused on making camp, he supplies cold drinks or a piece of fruit as he circles the campsite, pitching in when someone needs a hand putting up a tent or starting a campfire. The role and ritual evolved organically, normalized to the point where all have come to count on it. Lisa described her paddling companions’ rituals of sharing a stunning sight in nature, shouting “Over here. I’m having a moment.”

The Super Friend is the one that picks up the phone and calls just to check-in saying “you were on my mind.” Super Friends use the “text weekly, call monthly, see quarterly” practice suggested by comedy writers and podcasters, Aaron Karo and Matt Ritter. I swear by the practice of when someone comes to mind, acting immediately on the intention to reach out. Many times, their greeting is followed by “It’s so weird you’re calling me. I was just thinking of you.” My standard reply is, “I’ve learned to listen to the universe…or it’s liable to drop a piano on your head.” We laugh and dive in with me starting with the three things on my mind that led me to reach out.

For me, a Super Friend can open up to draw others close. This turns companionship into reciprocal trust, and mutual regard into deep caring. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, “Ask someone a favor; make a friend for life.” Friendship grows by making space for someone to be a friend. It raises the stakes and embeds trust in knowing how friends come to count on each other. It bequeaths to another the opportunity to render service, deliver a kindness or simply be present when a Super Friend is in need.

This is the Super Friend quality I admire most. We make space for a friend by sharing ourselves – a secret, a struggle, shame. You can be a great friend to others but may never be comfortable being a friend to yourself by getting the support you need. It takes an admirable degree of comfort with one’s own vulnerability to allow someone else to lend the support you need. But, by calling on a friend, a Super Friend is saying “you mean enough to me for me to bring you in,” and in so doing, propelling the friendship to a new level. Super Friends reach out on one their own worst days – a bad break-up, a deep depression, a sudden and tragic death – are inviting us to be the best friend one can be.

Do you know a Super Friend? Are you one? Are there parts of the Super Friend “anatomy” that I’ve missed? Feel free to drop a comment.

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In my role as my own coach/therapist, I recently asked myself “what do I truly hate?” To my surprise, three things came almost immediately surfaced: fascists, tailgating drivers and ketchup rationing. Let me explain.

Fascists rose quickly to the top of the list but not reflexively so. Having lived through the various pendulum swings of our country’s political moods, I was slow in my resolve to label our current poly-crisis as evidence of rising fascism. I think labelling opponents as Nazis and Fascists too often cuts off debate and adds to the polarization and disconnectedness we often feel.

In my career in Washington where I spent most of my time in foreign policy and international development, I closely studied democratic practices around the world and became familiar with how we measure democracy and governance deficits, uprisings and human rights abuse and respond as a government to the so-called Dictator’s Playbook now in use around the globe.

Scapegoating. Othering. Dehumanizing of enemies. The pattern first emerged in President Trump’s first term and has only become more embedded in his second. From deeming the press “the enemy of the people” and failing to condemn right-wing extremism (remember Charlottesville?) to the more recent and ongoing effort to use the levers of government to seek retribution against his political opponents, Trump has shredded norms and constitutional principles. And nowhere is this more evident than in the systematic use of federal law enforcement’s unlawful round-up of individuals, many of them U.S. citizens. It smacks of the worst abuses of fascist governance. The label has been earned.

I hate that my friends in D.C. now live where they regularly deal with ICE raids, national guard deployments and helicopters circling over their neighborhoods.

Tailgaters – not the folks who picnic and party before football games, them I love. It’s the folks that always have to be somewhere and like to drive their car so close to your bumper that you can hear their radio playing. I (mostly) resist the urge to slow down, although I zealously drive the speed limit or ceremoniously pull over and let them pass. What I hate is the smallness of mind this behavior betrays, as if it’s their world and we are just furniture.

Here I try to summon the wisdom of a quote from Ruth King (often attributed to Nelson Mandela) who wrote, “When we can sit in the face of insanity or dislike and be free from the need to make it different, then we are free.” [Corrected, with thanks to a faithful reader].

This brings us to the ketchup rationers. Who thinks this country suffers from a shortage of condiments? I have been heavily socialized in a way that creates certain expectations when dining out. Among them, that every table should have a full bottle of Heinz ketchup ready and waiting. Putting aside ketchup packets for the moment, my trigger is the small stainless steel container with a precisely ladled tablespoon of ketchup to accompany my half-pound burger and side of fries.

Why does this trigger me? I think it is just one more example of the scarcity mindset so prevalent in our culture. In the midst of plenty, we are made to think that things are scarce – love, compassion, joy – including the joy of fries slathered with ketchup. I hate that.

When I shared my list of hates with my brother, he asked the logical question: “What happens when you’re being tail-gated by a group of ketchup-rationing fascists?” Another friend and mentor offered her own mantra: “Sometimes there isn’t enough Buddhism in the world for that?”

Having simplified my list of hates, I plan to proceed under a simple maxim: If I can name it, I can tame it. And when I get triggered, I can choose instead to live with curiosity and compassion that leads me to connection and joy. It’ll be my way to fight fascism, gracefully give way to those in a big hurry and know that abundance exists in much more than a single serving.

Do you have a “hate trigger” that you are working on? How are you doing with it? I’d love t to hear about it.

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That’s what I asked a close friend after listening to a podcast by Mel Robbins, referring to someone you feel close enough to call at 4:00 a.m. when you need support.

I was surprised (and a bit chagrined) when his answer was no. I thought. “Dude, you’re killing me,” I said in my ”what am I, chopped-liver?”- voice.

At my kitchen table the next day, the same friend went to my fridge for milk for his coffee. Catching my eye, he said, “refrigerator friends,” knowing that he enjoyed access rights to my fridge. “4:00 a.m. friend!”, I countered. “I love you for that, man!” he retorted.

This exchange, a somewhat rare vocalization of love between friends, resonated with me as I finished reading Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends by Marisa G. Franco PhD.

Franco is one of several leading experts making the case for claiming and celebrating friendship that “lies on the lowest rung of the hierarchy our culture places on love.” The author roots her approach in attachment theory, describing attachment styles with clarity and offering supportive literature and examples drawn for her own experience and those she has interviewed. As a reader, you can find the attachment style that may describe you – secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment. I rated high on the secure attachment style, having been raised on friendship in a close, loving and supportive family where friendship practices were modelled for me at an early age. (See On Friendship, Shorter, May 19, 2025).

Franco unpacks six practices for making and keeping friends, devoting a chapter to each and ending with tips and takeaways: Taking Initiative, Expressing Vulnerability, Pursuing Authenticity, Harmonizing with Anger, Offering Generosity and Giving Affection.

I focused on Franco’s chapter on expressing vulnerability, especially its section on “Men and Vulnerability,” a topic that continues to call to me. She describes how few all-male spaces give men room to feel safe enough to be vulnerable—therapy, AA and other support groups, or specialized men’s groups. I connected with one interviewee’s plaintive cry as he “hopped around men’s organizations” looking for a place where he felt he belonged: “Where were the normal, everyday guys—the bearded, swearing, broad-shouldered dudes [he] could see himself in?”

Exactly. I related immediately -- Bearded? Yes. Broad-shouldered. Not so much.

Men need that feeling of trust and the confidence to express themselves and their feelings about their relationships, their health, their work and their dreams. They need to find the words to express their love for their friends, but especially male friends without the “homo hysteria” Franco describes, recalling that before the 20^th century, men more freely expressed their friendship in letters and demeanor. Then came Freud.

Franco, speaking to all genders, offers tips and takeaways for showing vulnerability and expressing affection. Reviewing her list, I found my “Aha moment.” It turned out that Franco’s lists of tips and takeaways served as my gateway. I found several of my go-to practices and things I could easily dial up, especially in my male friendships.

Coming from a family culture that exuded affection when it came to friends, this is comfortable territory for me. But I can do more, like telling people how much they mean to me, letting them know how happy I am when I hear their voice. Greeting them warmly. Saying “I got you” when they’re in crisis. I am working on saying “I love you” more.

I can show vulnerability – what Franco calls the “deepest form of authenticity” in what I say and how I say it. If I need to cry, then I can try letting the tears come. If my voice cracks, I can go with it. I can experiment with asking for help when I need it, rather than white knuckling through a crisis. Being first – meaning taking the initiative to open up a conversation, even if it means taking a risk.

So why take the risk? For me, as Mel Robbins says, “with more days behind me than ahead of me,” I am choosing to invest in deep friendship (or what friendship expert Anna Goldfarb calls “wholehearted friendship”), where me at my best, most authentic and vulnerable self, connects with those I love.

This is difficult terrain for many people – and as Franco notes as she brings her latest book to market: “…that secure attachment is easy to perform and a lot tougher to internalize.” Platonic offers the scaffolding and language that we all need. For many of us, it comes down to taking the leap to the next level of friendship.

Did you ever make a move that took your friendship to the next level? Tell me about it in the comments.

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The author and I are almost the same age, both born in New Jersey, both exploring friendship. We both like his one-time co-star, Ally Sheedy. And I had a special affection for their movie, St. Elmo’s Fire (1986). The seven young, urban professionals, former Georgetown University students, frequented a fictional bar that turned out to be a block away from a hotel where I worked as a desk clerk. I imagined being an extra, or even a bit player -- akin to Seinfeld’s Kramer delivering the iconic line “these pretzels are making me thirsty.”

Widely panned by the critics, St. Elmo’s Fire spoke directly to the sudden onset of bewilderment and anxiety with newly-found freedom in the face of economic insecurity, all while swimming In the world of recreational drugs, drinking, and sex. (Rob Lowe recently confirmed plans for a sequel).

McCarthy’s new book was born out of a breakfast conversation with his son, Sam, who observed, “You don’t have many friends, do you?” McCarthy replied, “I have friends. I just don’t see them much.”

The exchange prompted him to undertake a 10,000-mile road trip across the country to visit a small circle of friends. Like a travel writer, he observes and reports on his conversations with various and sundry individuals and groups – from cowboys and gas station attendants, to desert gurus and members of a men’s group.

As he describes his encounters, he reviews the health of male friendship in the U.S. today, noting surveys that found 15% of men reporting no close friends at all; only 1 in 5 reporting having received emotional support from a friend in the prior week; “and among those with less than a high school diploma, 24% admitting to having no friends whatsoever.”

He summarizes the health risks of social isolation, including those documented in U.S. Surgeon General’s report that found loneliness was associated with greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. Elsewhere isolation was deemed worse than drinking six alcoholic drinks and smoking 15 cigarettes every day.

I raced through the repeated descriptions of scenery as he made his way from New England to the southeastern U.S., across Texas and then up through the Rockies, ending up in northern California, making 40 stops in all. I admired his stamina and tolerance for cheap motels and road food. I appreciated his portraits of friendships with seven friends with whom he drifted in and out of contact over 40 years as it felt true to my own experience of long-time friendships.

I’ve written previously of how we restart conversations as if no time has passed, stories told and retold, the silent, body-shaking belly laughter, the powerful hit of endorphins, the sense of belonging and effortless connection.

McCarthy’s self-described “unscientific examination” finds both pain and hope. His conversations speak of loneliness, the difficulty that many American men have in being vulnerable, showing weakness, or affection for other men. As the country experiences more and more exposure to the idea of gender fluidity and exploration of identity, McCarthy observed among his interviewees the longstanding fear of appearing gay, or overly attracted to men, needy or weak. This was not universal and some of the most interesting stories came from diverse tales of friendships -- a pair of cops who have been friends for 40 years, or two high schoolers who are supporting each other as one transitions gender, to members of men’s clubs who find deep connections in the safety and trust created in these spaces. In these friendships, McCarthy finds men able to invest fully in the relationship, men able to share their burdens and risk the vulnerability of asking for help

As my reading and research continue, I find myself searching for the vocabulary and frameworks that will help men break through the barriers that keep so many of us so locked up. How do we learn to build trust, deepen understanding, show vulnerability and affection? Why aren’t these so-called “soft skills” valued by more American men? Many of McCarthy’s men view women as being much better at friendship. And some report having greater ease talking with their female friends rather than men.

I now find myself planning my own road trip that would take me from New England across the south, Midwest and Plain states, to the West Coast, with a similar ambition to explore friendship from the road. Having neither author credits or movie star good looks, I ‘ll have to figure out my own strategy for getting folks into conversations or run the risk of talking only to other Brat Pack fans like me.

I am already planning my own road trip with a friend. Have you ever taken a road trip with a close friend? How did it affect your friendship and why? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Filling My Cup

I have been warned not to get high on my own supply, but I have to say that I love my new merch.

Who wouldn’t want to be in a wholehearted friendship? Goldfarb’s introduces a mindset or way of being, rather than a list of what we look for in our friendships. She offers concrete advice on how we can nurture our relationships by adopting practices that deepen connection and bring richness to our lives. She describes the practices of desire, the interest in cultivating friendships; the delight in sharing our whole selves in ways that bring us joy and diligence in committing the time and attention to being a wholehearted friend. Imagine a s’more’s “chocolatey smooth desire, melting with the sweet gooey marshmallow of delight, all contained within a solid foundation of a diligent graham cracker.”

I love this metaphor. But for me, the chocolate chip cookie stands alone in my friendship memory bank.

It started in early childhood at our kitchen table when my mom announced the day’s baking project. We assembled the flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, Nestle’s semisweet chocolate morsels. I completed my assigned share of the batch, shaping the raw dough into some 20 cookies, always followed by the ritual licking of the spoon. Desire? Delight? Diligence? Sure.

And damn, they tasted good with a glass of cold milk.

My friends generously complimented our moms’ cookies in the hopes of fueling a healthy competition — where we would always be the winners. At some point, Patrick’s mom was deemed the winner and reigned for decades. We kidded him that his mom had been kidnapped by Keebler elves and held hostage in their tree, forced to make cookies day and night. I think we were in high school.

The most famous and shortest-lived batch of cookies were meant to sustain us during a post-college road trip. Five of my friends traveled from Maryland to Cape Cod to meet a group of college friends who had scored summer jobs at the Marine Biological Labs at Woods Hole.

One of our responsibilities was to transport our friend Pam’s bike which we dutifully strapped to the rear bike rack. We chose an 11 p.m. departure, arriving early enough to enjoy a full day on the beach. We piled into Chris’s burnt orange Maverick, named Millie, with our bags in the trunk, bike strapped in and the chocolate chip cookies on my lap.

As driver/owner, Chris drove first shift. He also chose the tunes, expertly popping a homemade mix tape of Queen’s greatest hits into the cassette player.

It took four seconds before things went horribly wrong.

Chris misjudged the slope of my driveway and promptly crushed the wheel of Pam’s bike as Millie bottomed out. Chris slammed on the brakes. The box of cookies flew out of my lap, hit the back of Chris’s seat and landed upside down at my feet. My heart leapt into my throat, my pulse quickened. I tried to scoop-rescue the treasure and only succeeded in dumping the contents at my feet. Even with the three-second rule, a hot DMV summer night had already gone to work. What was once cookie would never be cookie again. The trip was doomed.

If there had been revelry and romance that weekend, it has all been forgotten. The cookie story remains burned into our memories, replayed at our annual get togethers over the past 40 years and for us, forever linking the chocolate chip cookie to friendship.

But what about when friendships go sideways?

For a lot of guys, when a male friendship gets to be too much work, we ghost. Nothing. If there had been an episode or a disagreement, we may address it and move on. More often, we let it sit. If the friendship continues – meaning no one felt strongly enough to mention it, the disagreement didn’t rise to a level that merited an uncomfortable conversation or even temporary distress. A deeper conflict, perhaps a betrayal or sharing of a confidence where there has been a violation of trust, requires more work. For guys, it may be harder to show hurt, expressing vulnerability and the desire for repair. We may lack the vocabulary and the practice of engaging in this kind of conversation.

A friendship may die for simple lack of attention. Life changes. We move to another city. Our needs change. One particular strategy Goldfarb advocates is to re-define the “what” of the relationship. For example, with your high school friends, you may need to build on the highlight reel of high school memories and “embrace the novel” by planning a road trip, reading a book together or planning an outing with a twist aimed at creating a new memory, and undoubtedly a new story to tell.

For a friendship that may have receded, I always enjoy the invitation to a baseball game. At best, the long hang reignites a shared interest and allows us to explore new topics, punctuated by the nostalgia of a good story, well-told. I focus on being present, tuning into my friend’s current circumstance and what he says and doesn’t say. I am usually reminded of the circumstance that brought us together, or the values we share or how our lives and interests have and can continue to intersect. Incidentally, a baseball game may have been played. At worst, you enjoy a game and learn more than you wanted about someone’s fantasy league roster.

Sometimes a cookie is just a cookie.

Do you have a friendship ritual that involves a cookie or other treat? I’d love to hear s’more.

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From the Bookshelf

Anam Cara (“soul friend’) by John O’Donohue

Friendship Blessing

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where
there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessing, challenges, truth,
and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam ċara.

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What do these trends mean for friendship, connection and community? I wonder how today’s young people develop the skills for connecting with each other in real-life? Boys face particular challenges, even when targeted policy interventions are attempted. For example, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Reeves found that free college tuition for all greatly improved girls’ performance but had no effect on boys.

And the situation is grave. Reeves describes how young men in Japan, whose monk-life existence in self-chosen isolation has led to the term “hikikomori” (or shut-ins) to describe a population that may now reach half a million. Some families have paid young women, so-called “rental sisters,” to write to their sons in need of some human connection.

Here in the U.S., we now have “MGTOW” which stands for “Men Going Their Own Way.” These men have given up on the possibility of connection in real life and some have found welcome corners of the internet where they are ripe for manipulation and grievance politics. Mirroring a video game, according to Reeves, Level One is foregoing all long-term relationships; Level Two involves disavowing any sexual relationships with women; Level Three is disconnecting from the economy making only enough to survive; and Level Four is withdrawing from society altogether or “going ghost.” It occurred to me that if and when the rightward shift in our politics reverses, these trends are likely to continue on their dangerous course.

When I talk about my book, both men and women tell me how timely the topic is, given the loneliness crisis, with particular concern about their male spouses, family members and friends. Married friends wonder what their husbands will do in retirement with the few friends they have, with the men who rarely manage the couple’s social calendar. Parents worry about their sons who spend endless hours alone in their room gaming or watching videos on Tik Tok, YouTube or visiting porn sites.

Part of the answer undoubtedly relates to brain science and the later development of parts of boys’ brains involving impulse control and decision-making which develop later in boys. Reeves advocates for boys getting an extra year of kindergarten, allowing boys time to better navigate puberty and young adulthood. He also pushed men to “HEAL,” that is, employment in health, education, administration and literacy, paralleling the ongoing efforts to recruit women in STEM. Not only are these the sectors where the jobs are, much of the work is often public-facing and calls for human interaction, emotional inelligence and empathy. Reeves also promotes more options for technical/vocational education rather than a rigid college track for all students.

Coming from a different angle, in his book “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt describes how we moved from a society of “play-based” childhood to “screen-based childhood” when in 2010, cell phones with internet access became widely available to adults and children. The non-stop commentary on world events, culture, trends, in short -- everything, filtered through emotionally charged social media led to the rewiring of the brains of a generation. His review of the research revealed a significant increase in reports of anxiety and depression among teens, with a higher rate among girls.

Haidt recommends phone-free schools, delaying social media use until age 16, and raising the age of cellphone adulthood to 16 (It is now 13 but lacks a reliable system of verification). He advocates for more play-based activities, with less intermediation by adults. This would teach kids to pick-up social cues in real life, resolve conflict, and devise their own strategies for making and keeping friends. While the days of parents telling their kids to “go play” and listening to the screen door slam behind them may be over, we don’t have a 21st century replacement.

Haidt has more to say about how we might open a path to our children’s spiritual development through activities that build community, expose kids to nature, stillness, meditation and embodiment. This may strike some as too soft or squishy to be workable. Maybe not. Summer camps, team sports and travel have many of these elements, allowing kids the chance to make their own way, finding ways to entertain themselves, alone and in groups. This is the space where “friending skills” are introduced, tested and strengthened, yielding lifelong results.

The policy challenge would be to make these experiences affordable and widely available to all. If it sounds expensive, consider the alternative of failing to change course, allowing epidemic loneliness and deteriorating mental health of our children to continue unchecked.

I estimate it was some time after I committed to reading no more than three news articles each day dealing with the Administration’s latest crimes against democracy and decency. I also noted increasing incidence of mindless scrolling through reels, magically served up by Meta’s algorithm to drown me with Seinfeld scenes, dad jokes, music trivia and baseball highlights.

“Where did that half hour go?” I asked myself.

I was also increasingly irritated by the insistent message alerts – from “breaking news” or incoming text messages to the more benign ping noting that Kate had played her turn at SCRABBLE. But by far, it was the amount of time spent checking my social media platforms for the latest on what friends and others were up to that made me look up and say, “It’s time to stop the madness.”

Undertaking a “digital detox” started with a conversation with my friend, Tom, at our bi-monthly lunch, always followed by a pop-in to a nearby bookstore. I was saying I should write a book on breaking up with my phone, when I found that, not surprisingly, someone had already done so.

I picked up Unplug: How to break up with your phone and reclaim your life by Richard Simon.

I guess I was the last person to learn about how our brain chemistry produces dopamine each time we pick up our cellphone and see a text response, a Facebook “like” or can immediately Google the answer to a question posed in a conversation. In the old days, we were happy being momentarily ignorant. It really didn’t matter if we knew how long Star Trek was on network television. (Stay. 1966-69).

Simon gives straightforward guidance on how to detox, recommending using a smartphone much like a computer, keeping it with your other electronics and using it for tasks that, once completed, allow you to rejoin the real world with your digital tool back in its place. Even better, trade down to a “dumb phone” that allows you to stay connected with other humans and not so much, the internet.

After a couple of weeks of ruminating on ridding myself of platforms, and lots of posting of travel pics, my first move was to remove my social media accounts from my phone. I can still check them by going to my computer but I now do this one or two times a day. I found this move particularly liberating as I was no longer being seduced into the gauzy, mindnumbing trap of endless scrolling, manipulated by highly refined algorithms designed to play on my interests and supply me with trace evidence of my digital footprints – what shopping needs I have or books I might be interested in reading.

Building on the aphorism, “if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product,” I said to myself if you don’t use your phone as a tool, then you’re the tool.

Don’t get me wrong. I still use my phone a lot. I would be lost in greater Boston without my navigation app. (And BTW, why does every town have a Tremont Street?). Ditto parking apps, on-line banking and ticket purchases. These are all task-based applications. I just got more aggressive in limiting the notifications, advertising and associated spam involved in their use.

Technology undoubtedly makes for more frictionless transactions, saving time and money. A friend shared the quote “it isn’t so much the time you spend on your phone. It’s the time you could’ve spent doing something else,” which I tracked to James Williams and his book, Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy. James wrote, “The dynamic is less about the time we spend on our devices and more about the lives we don’t live because of them.”

It was like I was on the Millennium Falcon, hearing Obi Wan Kenobi say, “That’s good. You’ve taken your first step into a much larger world.” Let’s just say I have “Lost Verizon.”

It’s early days, but I have already noticed a change. The Scylla of Facebook no longer draws me near. I can live without LinkedIn and I no longer linger there, using it only to track down a friend or make a contact in the absence of an email address or phone number. I have always resisted texting so the distraction of a text thread or an urgent notification has less allure. Rather than shop for books on-line, I go to my local indy bookstore or library to browse titles and make selections.

I meditate and read more. And when I do find myself scrolling – usually while waiting in line, or sometimes late at night, I am much more aware of my screen time. I get judgy. “Am I relaxing or wasting time?” Screen time has begun to unsettle me.

It’s time to put away the tool and get on task. I remembered that I am the boss. Technology works for me. And the job is living.

How do you use technology and what are you noticing about how you use it?

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I use this exercise with some of my coaching clients who are working on a career or life transition. I also use it myself. It’s a great way to get beyond the two or three items you’ve put on your “bucket list,” places you plan to travel or hobbies you want to recapture.

When pushed, my list might reach 10 items. Setting a goal of 27 made me think broadly about my current plans, dream vacations and new hobbies as well as paths not taken, risks abandoned and flights of whimsy that had to be curtailed for lack of money, time or imagination. Making a list helped to bring these ideas into focus: which ones can I absolutely do, which ones do I want to consider anew, and then what am I leaving aside for now?

When I made my list last fall, two entries rose to the top: i) host a writing retreat and ii) spend a weekend alone writing.

As I throttled back on my consulting and coaching business, the idea of designing a writing retreat took hold. I shared the idea with my coaching circle, a group I met in an embodied leadership course, who I thought might be game. Two of the group stepped forward: Tracy, a Pd.D. candidate (organizational development and behavior) who wanted to accelerate her dissertation research and Clay, an NGO leader who was making a mid-career pivot into social work, beginning a master’s degree program in the fall. Both agreed to spend a weekend in western Maine with me. My college friend, Linda, a skilled facilitator with her own writing practice, volunteered to lead our retreat.

I quickly shared a list of elements I thought would make the weekend special: embodied practices, writing, fun, connection and food. We organized a few zoom calls (Tracy and Clay live several states away) and discussed what each of us wanted from the retreat. Success for me meant spending a weekend doing some embodied practices (centering meditation), writing and enjoying each other’s company – in whatever quantity each element unfolded.

Our calls were a preview of the weekend with lots of energy, excitement and laughter at the prospect of designing our own adventure with the Maine’s western lake district as our backdrop.

My anticipation surged as the date of our writing weekend approached. Linda volunteered to serve as cook and quartermaster. Clay planned a major shopping for assorted treats from Portland’s Standard Bakery and Whole Foods. When the date came, we rendezvoused near the airport and continued our journey, arriving after dark on Thursday night. I joked with Tracy as I pointed out important landmarks along the way, invisible in the pitch-dark Maine sky.

We started each day by joining Linda’s daily on-line meditation – with some of my dedicated writing colleagues opting for the prone position from the comfort of their beds while others joined Linda (off camera) in the small family room. A short walk or exercise followed before we began our writing practice. Each session began with a “sprint” – a five-minute writing exercise in response to a prompt. We finished the exercise by sharing what we wrote and then Linda would read a long quote or poem to launch us into a 2 ½ hour writing block to be used however we chose.

I focused on my book outline with a goal of turning some of my previous work into the first section under a working title of “Raised on Friendship.” My colleagues offered encouragement and suggestions as I began sculpting my writing into something more textured, deep and coherent. I was treated to their work as they shared beautiful writing, some from the head, some from the heart, as if they had been writing their whole lives. Our conversations bubbled as each topic spilled into the next, powered with creative energy and care.

Jo kata practice - Writing Retreat

Beyond the business of writing, I noticed something else was occurring. In our Maine camp, where I had taken so many getaway weekends, family vacations and hosted close friends, I felt the familiar comfort of my sanctuary. I enjoyed playing host, describing the local landscape and blending in stories about the intentional community my family and I built from 30 years of summers spent at the lake.

My colleagues gave me more than their polite attention. There was something about the interaction of activity and place that made me feel a somatic opening. Contained in this trusting space, our conversations went deeper, as we filled in our biographies and our current preoccupations. Words – written and spoken – flowed freely, drawing us together, appreciating the work, the talent, and these wonderful beings in our small circle. The combination of sharing my writing in a place so close to my heart made me feel an openness and vulnerability to this small group of witnesses. I realized that sharing my connection to this most special of places was a way to invite people into a more expanded understanding of me and our friendship. I was announcing “this is me as my best self and I wanted to share it with you.”

Weeks later, I am still riding the wake of my first writing retreat, recalling the power of our gathering and its impact on our friendship. Beyond checking off one of my “27 Things,” I learned the power of place in building friendship.

Do you have a place that is particularly meaningful to you?

Is it somewhere that you share with friends?

I’d love to hear about it in the Comments.

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It seems that the “I” word will always be heard as a euphemism for sex. That’s why I was interested in the title of a podcast recently forwarded to me by a friend: Five Types of Intimacy. Strangely, my response wasn’t, “Oh great, here’s five ways I don’t want to talk about intimacy,” but rather an invitation to read on and learn something about a complicated topic. In the unpacking of intimacy, I thought there may be a way to widen the path to vulnerability that men often find so difficult to navigate.

This Psychology Today article, breaks it down this way:

• Physical intimacy includes physical touch (both sexual and non-sexual) such as intercourse, kissing, hugs, cuddling, sitting close together, or holding hands.

• Emotional intimacy involves the honest sharing of your thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes, and/or dreams, and feeling heard and understood by another person.

• Intellectual intimacy involves communicating beliefs, viewpoints, and ideas in a way that creates intellectual stimulation, curiosity, interest, and acceptance (despite possibly differing vantage points).

• Experiential intimacy involves doing something together that creates a shared experience or allows teamwork toward a common goal.

• Spiritual intimacy involves sharing moments that bring you a sense of awe, wonder, or acknowledgement of something bigger than yourself.

For many American men, those most likely to equate intimacy with sex, just widening the lens to these other dimensions may aid in being more vulnerable with each other. There are certainly exceptions, particularly in more demonstrative cultures of men greeting each other with hugs, or even kiss on each cheek, and other cultures where men holding hands in public doesn’t raise a second glance.

At the base of many male relationships one finds experiential intimacy, those shared experiences, whether its team sports, camping, walking to school each day, or just hanging out with the same group of guys for a stretch of time that build an iron sense of solidarity and kinship, feelings that are extraordinarily deep, and yes, loving.

Not that we talk about it that much.

For me, the most memorable conversations with my male friends seem to happen on long walks or car rides, or when sharing accommodations on long trips. Key is having privacy and a stretch of time where we are free of distractions or interruptions, or the intrusions of our ubiquitous technology. With my research on friendship underway, I often request reactions to some notion I’ve uncovered. But I can recall that most conversations were seeded by reminiscing about past mischief, memories and telling stories. Hearing stories often triggers, in me at least, a feeling of deep appreciation and warmth, recalling the essence of the friendship, what it means to me and how I enjoy time spent this way.

Exchanging family histories with one friend, we shared growth moments and emotional scars, all during an afternoon on a two-person sailboat. It was all unplanned, evolving naturally on a gorgeous sun-soaked day with light winds. We breezed along, painting a long, dual narrative of our high school and college days and starting our families. The conversation was brought to a quick halt when my companion threw himself overboard as a way to test my novice sailing skills. Apparently, he had satisfied himself that I could be trusted to perform a swift rescue and return us home safely.

I am always intrigued by intellectual intimacy, by the feeling of closeness you get when stimulated by the world of ideas and the conversations that crackle with energy, creativity, potential and learning. Certain friends inspire in me awe, deep respect, and gratitude just for being able to share that kind of energy. These conversations come in many flavors. My love of history and politics draws me easily into close friendships based on these shared interests. I leave these conversations with either stronger arguments (or greater doubts) about what I believe, a list of books to read and renewed appreciation for the keen-minded friend. At a time when the value of science and expertise is being questioned, I have a growing appreciation for my friends’ intellectual gifts and how they fuel our friendship.

Similarly, my own spiritual journey has been illuminated by conversations with friends, from the faith tradition they were raised in and traditions that they still observe, to wide experimentation and exploration of other faith traditions. I love these conversations for their openness and the richness of the stories, the bravery to take chances and the learning and growth that results. These conversations span all faith traditions as well as non-believers and those who maintain a strong spiritual practice, unaffiliated with any single organized religion. The human longing for community that nurtures connection and friendship is universal.

So, what does all this have to do with intimacy? I suspect men have less trouble in conversations about shared experience, intellectual interests, and spirituality. By broadening our own understanding of intimacy we may become more comfortable with the idea that intimacy isn’t something to be avoided. Emotional intimacy and the notion of showing vulnerability ups the ante for friendships, calling on us to overcome years of socialization and our own definition of manhood.

Yet, showing vulnerability signals confidence that information shared or a fear revealed will never be betrayed. Reciprocated trust in these vulnerable moments can deepen our ties of friendship. By stepping beyond the comfort of the good male hang, we can explore more deeply with each other our hopes and fears, insights and sorrows. Maybe this will make us feel less lonely, more supported by and closer to the men who often are, but who we may seldom call, beloved.

With a broader vocabulary for talking about intimacy, do certain friends or situations come to mind? I’d love to get your reactions in the comments.

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Many friends and colleagues lost their jobs. Their lives changed literally overnight, forced to return to the United States from overseas, uprooting their families, leaving behind lifesaving work that saved millions of lives over the last two decades. I have talked to dozens of USAID staff and development professionals across the field, from newly-minted graduate school students just entering a nearly defunct field to those nearing retirement with tuition bills to pay and the prospect of hitting the job market in their late 50s. The job market looks a lot different when you pull over $35 billion out of the sector.

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As for myself, I too was left reeling, despite having exited the agency in 2017. I am still not prepared intellectually or emotionally to tell the entire story. Fortunately, many others have honored the Agency’s history through their testimonies, advocacy, and analyses over the past year. For now, I’ve gathered in one place what I consider the best documentation that I came across during this tumultuous year. While I have undoubtedly missed many accounts that add to the record of USAID’s achievements. I’m sure there are also tales of vengeance, arrogance, incompetence, and ignorance I have failed to include on the part of those who oversaw and enabled the destruction of the Agency. I would certainly welcome your additions in the comments.

If you have a half-hour, start by watching John Oliver’s humorous and brutal takedown of the USAID’s executioners, those most responsible for its undoing. Oliver always delivers great satire, but here he also does a great job describing USAID’s work and what we as a nation have lost in terms of international stature, the influence of “soft power” and the result of 60 years of international development cooperation.

A standout piece by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker described in detail the consequences of USAID’s demise in terms of lives lost. Gawande, the head of USAID’s Global Health Bureau during the Biden Administration wrote:

”There are valid criticisms of U.S.A.I.D. It sometimes fostered dependency. It could be inefficient. Too much of its funding went to international institutions, rather than to local ones… Yet no other agency of the U.S. government has saved more lives per dollar. It helped move billions of people out of poverty. And it showed how to deliver results for all of humanity, including Americans, through cooperation, rather than coercion.”

The piece includes a short film entitled “Rowina’s Choice,” which centers the human cost of Trump’s policies on a choice no mother should have to make.

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Daily news is of course the first draft of history— it is extremely important that the historic record of this calamitous decision be clear: how USAID’s quickly USAID was extinguished with little public debate, congressional oversight, or subsequent accountability. To understand the scale and pace of the destruction, The New York Times’ timeline is a guide for future researchers and historians.

A year ago, I also offered my own testimonial, concluding:

“This is not a fight about foreign aid. It’s about whether our democracy can withstand unchecked power grabs and unaccountable governance led by the most powerful man and the richest man in the world. It smacks of fascism. It has already made us less safe, less free and less able to meet the challenges we face.”

And if you have just 90 seconds, I’d like you to watch this video. It brings a tear to my eye and puts fight back in my heart.

USAID Forever.

Do you have stories about USAID? I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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“A rabbi, a minister and an ethical humanist walk into a bar…”

I know. It sounds like the joke they use to warm up the crowd at a Rotary meeting. I wanted to explore what our main religious traditions have to say about friendship. And it turns out, I actually know a rabbi, a minister, and an ethical humanist who could help me out. So I took each of them out for a metaphoric drink.

Over coffee, Rabbi Alison Adler shared, “I wrote a sermon several years ago entitled, ‘Friendship is Our Religion,’” which she gave to her congregation at Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly. In it, she quotes a 2012 interview with Nobel Laureate, professor, author, activist and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel:

“To me, friendship is a religion. We could not live without it. Perhaps we could live for a while without love, but not without friendship. The most simple way to bring about positive change in the world is to let others know they are not alone.”

I am in comfortable agreement with Wiesel, and having never been exclusive when it comes to religion, friendship feels like home to me. Raised Jewish, strongly influenced by my affinity for Quakerism, Unitarian-Universalism, Buddhism and secular humanism, his sentiment landed squarely on my heart.

Rabbi Alison’s sermon also included a beautiful story about her niece, Ava, who upon learning her friend had a serious illness requiring intense treatments, decided to accompany her every step of the way—including going through the same prep for an ultrasound—to truly know what her friend was experiencing. Ava wanted to be there for her friend by literally putting herself in another’s shoes, epitomizing the empathy that often characterizes the closest friendships.

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We also discussed the importance of friendships across differences. She cited the strong friendship between Rabbi Abraham Heschl and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which symbolized the partnership between the African-American and Jewish communities fighting for civil rights in the 1960s. She lamented the rising levels of polarization and othering that today makes friendships across differences so difficult.

That theme also arose early in my conversation with Julie Flowers, minister of the First Baptist Church of Beverly. She leads a congregation quite different from the Southern Baptists I came across growing up in the D.C. suburbs. My first hints were the Malcolm X quote and the pride flag that adorn the entrance to First Baptist on Cabot Street downtown. I met Julie when she first ran for City Council, running an energetic grassroots campaign that brought several first time volunteers into the political process, especially young people. We discussed the friendship theme in the story of “The Good Samaritan.” The admonition to love and care for one another celebrates connection, but also calls us to have the capacity to aid and comfort “the other.” In a fractious political and social moment, the story asks us to be in community with those who are different, alien or strange to us.

In her work, Julie is a witness to the friendship skills of young people as they navigate the world of social media technology, information overload, consumerism and conflict—whether it’s cyber bullying or the culture wars that teenagers unfortunately are drawn into. She spoke of how honored she was to witness scenes of courage, vulnerability, love, and learning as the Church’s youth group members connect with each other and deepen their friendships as they learn lifelong skills of interpersonal communication. These are the skills that make them good friends.

The more I write, the more the connection between deep friendship and building an overall sense of connection and community continues to surface. It is captured in a sermon sent to me by my friend, Hugh, recently retired from a career as a leader in the Ethical Culture Society. For years, he split his time in the Society’s pulpits in Baltimore and Philadelphia. The sermon discussed the mission of his congregation at Rittenhouse Square:

“..the supreme aim of human life is working to create a more humane society…” You embrace our commitment “to the worth and dignity of the individual, and to treating each person so as to bring out the best in her or him.” But many of you stay because you felt we were able to “nurture a warm welcome community that supports this commitment.”

When Hugh and I connected, he elaborated on how shared belief in universal values may create the basis for friendship and community. I asked, “How might we better attend to our friendships?” Hugh shared his belief in tenderness and truth, particularly in addressing differences or conflict in friendships.

For Hugh, tenderness is the capacity to listen carefully, avoiding judgment, “letting things,” as he says, “be how they are,” and resisting the instinct to correct, fix, or change someone else. Truth or truth-telling is the direct sharing of observations and assessments with friends, delivered from a place of love and support, including hard truths spoken aloud. We discussed how challenging this can be, particularly with friendships in need of repair.

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Is friendship really my religion? My journey from my Jewish upbringing to becoming what I call “Quaker adjacent” has certainly shaped how I view and value friendship. From a decade of summers spent at an Echo Hill, Quaker-inspired summer camp on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, to attending Earlham College, I made life-long friends who shared my values. Later, as a family, we chose to send our kids to Quaker high schools. I later became active in local Quaker meetings in Maryland and Massachusetts. I was drawn first by the social justice mission and teachings that made Quakers early and often lonely advocates for peace, civil rights, social justice, anti-poverty action, and penal reform. But I was equally drawn to its central belief in the inherent equality, dignity, and value of every person. When I try to truly see another person, this is the spark that often ignites a friendship for me.

It’s probably why my heart skipped a beat when I read David Brooks’ farewell essay for the New York Times.

“...Humanism comes in many flavors: secular humanism, Christian humanism, Jewish humanism and so on. It is any endeavor that deepens our understanding of the human heart, any effort to realize eternal spiritual values in our own time and circumstances, any gesture that makes other people feel seen, heard and respected.”

My religion? Maybe. Or maybe my passion for friendship is “religion-adjacent.”

I’d love to hear from you—How does your spiritual life influence your experience of friendship? Do you have connections through a particular community or group? Have your spiritual experiences shaped how you show up in your relationships? Let me know in the comments!

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She explained, “A friend of the road is someone you encounter and grow close to during a time of shared experience.” Think freshman college dorm, a rec soccer team, a hiking club, or maybe a work colleague at a job you loved (or hated.) It is a friendship specific to a time or place. It may or may not last beyond the initial circumstance that brought you together. You might keep in touch, continuing a fondness and deep sentimental attachment to the time you shared, but this friendship may not occupy a place in your current day constellation of friends.

A friend of the heart may start as a friend of the road, or maybe not. Either way, something about the connection clicked to make it a forever friendship. Whether a shared experience, a feeling of trust that allowed you to open yourselves, or some other cosmic connection, a friend of the heart is usually a friend for life. (See previous issue, Supported and a Little Buzzed)

With those concepts in mind, I have one more to add. I have recently been blessed with several of what I now call reignited friendships. These friendships are long in the making, a friendship of the road lays quietly dormant for decades before being rediscovered, like unwrapping a family heirloom long stored away in a drawer seldom opened.

Carolyn and I met in graduate school in New York City. She cut a high profile on campus, a perennial joiner, whip smart and studious. We shared a strong interest in Latin America and had several classes together. We were part of a small coterie of Latin Americanists, deeply engaged in issues facing the region: the debt crisis, the U.S. role in Central America, and the struggle for human rights and democracy across the region. We bonded over preparations for a student-run conference, working together for months to develop an agenda, arranging for expert speakers to fly in, assigning responsibilities for the student organizers, and arranging for an open bar at the end to toast our hoped-for success. I think we were both just glad to have made it through the day.

Graduation came and we went our separate ways. I went back to D.C., where I grew up, and went on to what became a career on Capitol Hill and in government. She and her husband, Mark, went into the private sector and their international careers took them to São Paulo, London and Hong Kong, and eventually back home again to New York and Connecticut. Two decades later, I came across a book she wrote about employee engagement and burnout. Of course, I reached out via email (our first communication in over 25 years) to set up a phone call. I was a bit nervous as I dialed her number but we soon fell into easy conversation. I shared my interest in pursuing an encore career in coaching and she caught me up on similar work that led to her book. At the same time, those school day memories came back strong. I left our conversation with a warm glow of nostalgia.

Another decade passed before we spoke again. Carolyn reached out last year when she came across my newsletter. We did a quick catch-up call, covering everything from raising kids to career moves to retirement plans. Carolyn was absorbed by the idea of friendship herself. As she and Mark plan their next move from Connecticut to South Carolina, she wondered aloud how she would build a nurturing circle of friends in a new location.

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I shared my ambition to write a book about friendship and how I was building a community through Substack to incubate my ideas. It was clear I had a willing thought partner. A once-dormant friendship ignited like a campfire, energetic and cheerful. Our subsequent calls always seem too short, as we jump from topic to topic, sparked by a common interest, a story shared or an idea we both have been noodling over.

At the same time that this reignited friendship came into being, I was catching up with another friend from the same time period. Tom was an undergraduate classmate of my cousin Alan Michael, who introduced us. We got together for Mets games, parties, and the occasional dinner or evening bar crawl over the two years I lived in New York.

Fast forward nearly 40 years: Tom is now a retired schoolteacher living a few towns away from me in Massachusetts. At Alan Michael’s encouragement, Tom and I met for lunch and a walk at a midpoint between our two homes. Tom looks exactly the same, except for the grey of his still-full head of hair. As an active runner, skier and tennis player, he remains as svelte as he was in the 1980s.

We immediately fell into easy conversation, recapping nearly 40 years of unshared history – courtships, marriage, kids and career highlights. With those particulars covered, we shifted to the present where it turns out we are both nursing along serious writing projects: Tom is writing a novel, but also writing just to write. As the writing novice in this relationship, I bent his ear asking him about his craft, his writing practice, and questions of voice, style. The interrogation included what he’s reading and how his writing is coming, of course. And I shared my newsletter pieces and waited eagerly for his comments.

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In this reignited friendship, I enjoy the easy comfort I feel as he asks me the occasional piercing question about how I came to take on this project, his gentle inquiries probing who I am in relation to it. I get more excited each time our monthly diner brunch date approaches.

The delight of a reignited friendship is something unique. It starts with the sense of shared history or the original interest that often still brings us together. But it is the seasoning in between, the time when lives were being lived while the friendship lay dormant, that brings depth and insight, self-knowledge and wisdom to a friendship rediscovered. That rekindling can also only occur through real intention to reconnect, a different flavor of the attention that any friendship needs to thrive. These qualities make me think of the rare case when a long expected movie sequel turns out to be better than the original.

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Have you experienced a reignited friendship? What did you discover? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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What I discovered in this process is there may be more powerful descriptive labels for each side of the triangle, but these function as a great starting point for conversation. As I spoke with folks in my network, I needed to take time to explain the pieces of the puzzle. Rather than the “a-ha” or immediate spark indicating that the formula had landed with force, it took a bit of conversation. (To be fair, I didn’t have Shasta Nelson on hand to explain P+C+V in her own compelling way.)

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When my friends and I talked about consistency, which is rooted in a shared history over time, many people spoke to what grows out of that consistency. Trust, reliability, and loyalty are the ties that bind us together. The result is an iron-clad confidence that such a friend is someone who has your back. That depth of trust seems to be the essential by-product of consistency.

Another word kept creeping into my conversations: reciprocity. Energy flows in both directions in a close friendship. My mom had strong feelings about her deepest friendships. She demanded a level of interest and intimacy to be able to trust. I still recall a friend’s eulogy who said, “Muriel simply was not interested in a casual friendship.” This sounds extreme, and it is, but they are the kind of friendships worth working toward. Such deep connections are rarely transactional, not a place to keep score. They are the product of investment in each other.

It’s not just a sense of mutual give-and-take of a friendship, a conversation or a meaningful relationship. One friend related hearing someone explain about relationships, “I need a 60-40 effort.” To them, some friends are worth carrying more than a perfectly equitable effort toward nurturing the relationship because of the value they themselves placed on the friendship. The intention and values line up, even if life makes maintenance more complex than a 50-50 effort. I have friendships that are 80-20 in terms of my effort, and I treasure them no less. Some friends, for all sorts of reasons, can’t prioritize our friendship for periods of time. These circumstances arise from demands of family, work and career, or simply living in different time zones. Our friendship rests on years of history, stories shared and that amazing ability to return to connect with intensity—even if we haven’t spoken for years. I find I’ve stopped caring about who initiates the contact or returns calls faster. They had me “hello.”

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Positivity was a different kind of conversation, one with more explanation needed. The author won me over immediately with the point that a friend’s consistent negative energy (think “Debbie Downer” or “Joe Buzz-Kill”) makes friendship difficult. I immediately recognized those dynamics. Those I talked to also recognized places where it was lacking and that absence made an impact. One friend, agreeing on the importance of positivity, related how she has encountered more than a few “energy vampires,” where strong boundaries were needed to protect herself. Nelson points out that friends needn’t be perfect or uncritical, but that the positive should outweigh the negative in a proportion of 5:1. (Very scientific.)

Vulnerability was the one component of the P+C+V formula that garnered immediate and broad agreement as being the defining ingredient in close relationships. For me, it immediately raised the issue of how difficult it is for many men to open up. It’s no small feat, overcoming years of socialization to not show weakness, share their feelings or ask for help. Perhaps guys lean more heavily on consistency and positivity to get to a place where being vulnerable gets easier. Reflecting on my closest male friendships, shared experiences rise to the surface — like our annual long weekend getaways. They allow us the time to repeat our rituals, enjoy sporting events and entertainment, and tell old stories, getting to a place where we share what’s really going on in our lives.

I think it’ll take more than shared space before men can talk with greater ease about their fears, hopes, and challenges. They can explore what makes them tick. As a coach and a friend, I have learned that the essence of connecting with someone is to be present and be curious. Being present means making your whole self aware of someone else, not thinking about what you want to say next or being distracted by the mind’s wandering ways. If you have trouble looking another guy in the eyes, try looking at their forehead or nose. It may involve taking your eyes off the game. Please don’t try it while driving.

Beyond this level of engagement, there’s a real need for men to develop a language for what’s going on inside. My hunch is that there are simple practices that will ease the path for us to find our way to deeper friendships and greater connection. The starting place is that intention to engage more deeply, and be curious about our friend’s inner lives.

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Curiosity is fired up by great questions. “What’s up?” or “What’s been keeping you busy?” are a good start. Asking “What’s going well right now?” or “What are you excited about?” can get deeper without too much warm up. Cocktail party conversation about the last thing you enjoyed watching on tv might shift into, “When were you last really inspired and why?” And then, to the more serious “What’s keeping you up at night?” and “What kind of help actually helps?” There’s always an easy opening in the non-question: “Tell me more.” My personal favorite first step into this kind of conversation is, “I’m curious...”

I also think that guys can appreciate and engage with a friend who asks the big question, like “What crossroads are you at?” or “What would you do if you weren’t afraid? (See “Are you an Illuminator?”). It might not be the first question you ask after, “How are you?” but big questions are worth talking about once your conversation gets going.

I am still closer to the beginning of my research. There are many more conversations to be had. There has also been plenty written on this topic (I’m working my way through it!) Let me hear from you—what are the questions you think are worth asking?

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We all know the feeling of an electric connection with a friend— you can hardly contain yourself. My heart beats faster. My mind is racing. My words start pouring out like they were shot through a fire hose. So much to share and so little time! My voice gets louder. I have to remind myself to listen more and talk less. Even with all this, it’s one of the all-time best feelings.

I have the good fortune to have a number of friends in whose presence the mutual energy level just explodes with appreciation, creativity, excitement, and connection. I recently heard this referred to as a “resonance field,” something I already know exists between friends and have always wanted to explore more deeply. Coming across the term in a shared Instagram video, I finally had words to put to this incredible feeling.

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It starts off with immediately understanding what a person is talking about, perhaps because of similarity of backgrounds or experience, a shared language, or sense of humor. We may find that we like the same t.v. shows and movies or share similar tastes in music. In relationships that began as colleagueships, the connection is rooted in similar professions where I have spent time getting wiser and more creative. In sharing ideas on current projects or things I have wanted to explore, I always walk away with a great idea or a new way of thinking about an issue.

But it’s more than just having a super-interesting conversation. My energy is different – alive, invigorated, accompanied with a friend in a zone of creativity and connection. Words and ideas flow and circle back together, shift back and forth, as we draw from our past and project into the future – not a dream, but a deeply resonant state of mind.

Such an intense connection does not necessarily correlate with the closeness or length of the friendship. I certainly feel connected to my closest friends, but there are a few people who sit outside the ring of close friends who, when we get together, we immediately click. Our conversations have a different feel to them. That wonderful racing sensation has been present from early in our relationship, if not right from the start.

Sanjay and I at one time held parallel positions in organizations working to address international corruption and governance issues. Meeting regularly on the margins of international conferences, we discussed what we were working on, challenges we faced within our institutions, and how we planned to achieve our respective team’s goals. We always supported each other, keeping in touch, cheering each other on.

With time, those conversations migrated to D.C. coffeeshops for longer discussions about what excited us most about the work. We traded insights on how we could explore a cutting edge or give a new idea the oxygen it needed to grow, usually in the area of leadership and ethics. Like no one else I’ve known, Sanjay had the ability to listen deeply first, draw on his diverse knowledge base, and then generously share thoughts, ideas, and information building a flow and intensity of conversation that left me smarter, supported… and feeling a little buzzed.

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Planning our office’s annual conference, Rachael and I collaborated closely. We were both deeply invested in how to create an overall experience for participants that would be different in some way from just another professional conclave. As our friendship deepened, I became fascinated by the breadth of Rachael’s interests outside of how she made a living, from story-telling and writing to competitive women’s roller derby.

Our conversations grew out of our shared interest in facilitation, training and coaching. But it became a more compelling connection as we shared more about our lives. Rachael’s personal and professional interests eventually took her to Australia, where she is now a naturalized citizen and ICF-certified coach. The distance and pattern of our lives mean that we rarely get the chance to be together in person, but it doesn’t affect our shared resonance field. Our conversations hum, as the topics tumble out one after another – organic, connected, always interesting, and at times profound.

Jenn is a friend of more recent vintage, a connection acquired while she was running the re-election campaign of a local city councillor. Watching her navigate this complex role for the first time, I noticed how she listened first, asked clarifying questions, and always neatly summarized a conversation, ready to assign follow-up tasks. Holding signs on the campaign trail for our candidate, I learned about her deep interest in human-centered design, entrepreneurship, community, and connecting authentically with others. Our conversations had a resonant, magical feel to them, making the hours of sign-holding pass quickly.

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We vibed about Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering and talked about how to design meaningful moments beyond traditional gatherings. This shared interest in design and facilitation led me to ask for her help orchestrating my cancer healing ceremony (see Getting Ready to Get Rid of Eddie). In turn, she reached out to me for advice with her vision of creating a community sauna house, called Sol Tide, which is now a reality.

These experiences with “the energy of friendship” have stood out to me as examples of powerful, transformative connections and I have wondered, why these friendships? How does this kind of connection happen?

Jeanine is a neuroscientist, a former senior education official, and a skilled executive coach. Her background in neuroscience makes her my “go to” for questions about how our brains work. I trust her insights, and she’s patient with my curiosity.

“‘Resonance fields’ isn’t a term I use,” Jeanine told me. “I prefer the term “synchrony.” I learned the formal term neural synchrony describes the phenomenon when brain activity of two or more individuals aligns or matches during social interaction. It turns out neural synchrony —that deep, powerful connective experience that was so familiar and joyful for me— shows up in our brains, not just our feelings. When the brain waves of two individuals experiencing this synchrony are mapped using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), they show similar patterns and activity in the distinct regions of the brain associated with memory, emotion, and decision-making. Your brains are literally in sync.

“Synchrony” makes me think of a tight jazz quartet or dance partners who are able to move in perfect rhythm. The idea that these connections are so aligned that they seem to create their own energy field makes perfect sense to me. I have felt it. A conversation can have its own synchronous rhythm as two heads lean towards each other in conversation: one person offers a dramatic gesture while sharing a thought, insights bouncing between two people, perhaps bringing a new idea into creation. Add a personal story, a good laugh, or an “A-ha” moment, shared smiles. That buzz.

Observing this behavior in a coffee shop might prompt me to say, “Can I get a cup of synchrony, please?”

Have you experienced this kind of “synchrony” or joined a friend in creating a “resonance field” whenever you get together? I’d love to hear about the conversations that leave you buzzing and buzzed.

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So began a Levine family dinner conversation one evening in the summer of 1981. Muriel Levine (or “Mu” to her friends and family) was mad. My mom’s outburst was triggered by the fact that the City of Rockville had decided to replace the old concrete sidewalk near her office with red brick. At the same time, the Reagan Administration was cutting the food stamps budget, increasing defense spending, and gunning for a huge tax cut for the wealthy.

These priorities did not sit well with Mom. It also created a safety hazard (from my mom’s driving, if not the bricks.)

In her reaction was a characteristic willingness to confront injustice with small acts of resistance. In her younger days, the community meetings she attended often began with the Pledge of Allegiance. The formality impelled my mom and a friend to shake-up the proceedings a bit, shouting at full-lung, “with liberty and justice for all!” at the pledge’s ending.

Meanwhile, my dad was working at the Community Relations Service (CRS). This was a division of the Department of Justice created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, designed to address community conflict through mediation and conciliation. His latest assignment? To predict the risk of violence in the American cities most affected by draconian cuts in federal domestic spending programs.

The 1980s were challenging times for a pair of long-time liberal Democrats. They came of age during the New Deal, lived through WWII, and found each other while working on civil rights in the 1950s. In my childhood, my mom would often recall her years at Bucknell University, where she joined the NAACP. There was one African American student on campus at the time, required to live in the home of the president. This unusual arrangement was an accommodation of sorts to the wish to open the university’s doors, however cautiously. Later, she would take the train from New Jersey to join the 1963 March on Washington with hundreds of thousands of protesters on the National Mall, listening to speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis and others.

My dad was the first in his family to go to college, majoring in journalism and political science, dreaming of being a writer. After serving in the Army during WWII, he worked with local organizations on civil rights issues. He ultimately landed a job at the American Jewish Committee in New York City, part of a broad coalition of national organizations supporting the fight for civil rights. This path led him to Washington, D.C. and his job at CRS. He also realized his dream of becoming a writer, ultimately penning a book chronicling the civil rights movement, through the lens of his CRS experience.

When my parents met in the early 1950s, friends who knew both of them decided they would be perfect together. The shared values were obvious. Their courtship was swift, although it took my dad multiple wedding proposals, one of which was met with a classic Mu-response: “Please, Bert. I’m eating.”

I often wondered how my parents might have reacted had they lived to see Donald J. Trump ascend to the presidency. The recent events in Minneapolis are only the latest example of the administration’s lawlessness, cruelty and incompetence. With the approach of the 20^th anniversary of my father Bert’s passing this week, this question burned in me.

What would Bert and Mu Do?

I knew I needed help, so I called an expert: my brother David. I wanted to get him thinking hard, not just about their emotional reactions, but what actions they might take today. I asked him to take his time considering. We made time to connect later that evening to talk it over.

“I’ve written out a few thoughts,” he began. It was more than a few— we ran over an hour, just on this question. What would they have done?

“What do you think they would have felt?” he asked me. Heartbreak, disenchantment, fury came to mind. I have visions of my mom slamming down pots and pans on the stove as she attempts to make dinner after glancing at the latest headlines, MS Now blaring in the background. She would have loved Rachel Maddow!

David talked about our parents’ early activism in Teaneck, New Jersey, and my parents’ involvement in an example of successful school integration. We discussed my mom’s work at a women’s shelter, cooking for a soup kitchen, and in her retirement, serving as a member of the Montgomery County Foster Parents Review Board. We agreed that she would have found a service organization supporting immigrant families, pronouncing herself all in.

My dad would have looked for a more formal and structured reform initiative to support. His response would likely have been shaped by his volunteer service on the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission. In response to the Trump agenda, I could see him giving expert testimony on the resources available to local leaders for mediating conflicts. Unfortunately, his professional home at CRS has been dismantled by the current administration, despite a pending lawsuit and a recent legislative effort to restore its funding. In its present form, the staff has been reduced to a single person.

As our conversation wound down, the mood was bittersweet. Recalling our family legacy, we came up with answers that made sense, knowing our parents as well as we do. We can see their legacy and its trajectory in our own lives. Years ago, David and his friends started an independent education journal dedicated to advancing equity and racial justice in the classroom. Rethinking Schools is now the leading grassroots magazine for social and racial justice in education. His efforts now include working with advocates in local immigration rights and anti-racism efforts. In David’s eyes, “[there is] a definite through-line from how we were raised and what I work on today.”

It’s this same upbringing that recently moved me to speak at a local city council meeting. I voiced my strong opposition to recent ICE enforcement actions as my community considers how to respond to the ongoing federal overreach and civil rights violations across the country. Without coordinating our efforts deliberately, two other speakers followed with strong and similar statements. It made our collective voice that much more forceful. It reminded me of the power of community and grassroots leadership when our leaders have seemingly lost their voice or power to lead…or both.

Thinking about my parents’ lifetime of advocacy and commitment to progressive values made me realize that our family was in the “good trouble” business. Given today’s challenges, it’s time to get to work.

I also want to thank my “sentries” — those readers who are on the lookout for articles, podcasts and stories about friendship. It is not uncommon for me to get multiple referrals of a “must-read” piece or podcast on the object of my attention.

One example: a New York Times article forwarded to me by multiple sentries. This opinion piece by Janice McCabe, an associate professor of sociology at Dartmouth College, introduced me to the concept of “friendship markets.” She writes:

In a thriving friendship market, a majority of people in a particular setting are interested in “buying” or “selling” friendship. For example, middle schoolers merging into a new high school, or first-year students arriving at college. New connections abound.

But we spend much of our lives in weaker friendship markets, where people are open to conversation, but not connection… Even intentionally putting yourself out there doesn’t inspire reciprocation if a friendship market has closed: Others already have fully formed friend groups.

I hadn’t heard the term “friendship market” before, and the systems analyst in me tuned in. One may try to “put themselves out there,” but if you are operating in a weak friendship market, it will take more effort and maybe more research into where those potential friends with shared interests are likely to show up.

Pulling that thread, the term seems to have been popularized by Shasta Nelson, the author of a number of books on friendship, including Frientimacy. In her TEDx talk, she argues that the cure for loneliness is not acquiring more friends. It’s getting more from the friendships we have. Her formula P+C+V, or Positivity + Consistency + Vulnerability, is the secret to any healthy relationship.

Positivity is the idea that we want to be around positive energy, which Nelson explains, “... comes from smiles and laughter and kindness; acts of service and empathy and validation, gratitude and affirmation; and all those things that leave us feeling accepted.”

Consistency is showing up in a way that can be counted upon, having someone’s back in a way that builds trust. The examples Nelson names include “hours logged, history built, rituals … and how we get to know each other,” though the ways we accumulate these intimacies are as varied as each of our relationships. That consistency comes to us early in life through repetition and learning in that K-12 period that seems to go on forever. It’s also when we’re likely to find our first deep friendships (see Hey Mikey) and if you are lucky, begin lifelong friendships.

Vulnerability is the ability to share more of yourself with someone else, including your hopes, dreams, fears, setbacks, and celebrations. The more we let our genuine selves be seen, the stronger the relationship becomes, anchored in positivity and built through consistent history of care and support. Together, these three qualities build a resilient and emotionally resonant relationship that can grow with all parties involved.

I have always thought that the explanatory power of formulas like P+C+V comes from elegance and simplicity, which yield that power. This one spoke to me deeply.

Friendship markets aren’t the only framework I use to think about relationships. Rachael, a good friend and former USAID colleague, now my sentry in Australia, introduced me to the term “formative communities,” which comes out of the work of Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, authors of Designing Your Life. A formative community is in essence a community that intentionally shapes the personal growth of those within it.

For Burnett and Evans, “…[a] formative community is grounded in shared intent, a collective commitment to becoming more fully human. The purpose isn’t performance, productivity, or pleasure. It’s growth. It’s meaning. It’s helping one another live more consciously and authentically.” Their overall approach takes design concepts and applies them to career management and satisfying life goals.

These are not “collaborative communities” that may form to achieve a clear material outcome such as a volunteer fundraiser, a clothing drive, etc. Nor are they a “social community” like a bowling team, book club, or a rotating dinner club. Each of these may be worthwhile for the enjoyment and companionship it brings, and may or may not leave us feeling seen, accepted, or changed in some way. A formative community is something else. A formative community is created deliberately with an intention to live more authentically and grow as a person.

The closest thing I have experienced to a formative community grew out of a nine-month coaching course I completed last year. To complement the in-person sessions, each participant was assigned to a coaching circle to continue to work virtually. At the end of the course, we just decided to keep meeting. With the shared experience of the course as our base, our group met regularly: six professionals, two men, four women, both in and outside of the coaching world. We continue to meet each month to continue embodied practice (breathwork, meditation, movement) and discussion of our lives: our ongoing paths, challenges, hopes, plans, and commitments to personal growth.

Our friendships formed and deepened quickly. And not surprisingly, we do quite well in what Shasta Nelson calls “working the top of the triangle,” where the attributes of positivity, consistency, and vulnerability come together and reinforce each other with every encounter. This group has my back and I have theirs. Together, we inspire and help each other grow.

This kind of group emotional intimacy may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The authors call formative communities rare. Burnett and Evans also are intent on reminding readers that, “[a] formative community doesn’t promise quick wins or tidy outcomes… What it offers instead is something more enduring: a place to grow, to be seen, and to become more fully yourself, over time, with others.”

I expect to be deeply indebted to my sentries. Their messages range from “keep writing” or “thinking of you” messages to poignant observations or a personal story that Shorter brought to mind. There is no roll call or weekly meeting. Most of them don’t even know they’re part of a vast network of friendship, holding me up and supporting my journey to explore friendship, connection and community.

I thank them all. Now, get back to your posts.

After a few long and exciting conversations about friendship, we decided we would sit down and discuss what she was finding. As you may imagine, the ideas flew back and forth about where we might take this. But that’s another article…or podcast …or documentary!

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Neil: You have begun your project to conduct 1000 interviews about friendship. What was your inspiration for this topic and project?

Margot: It started with a family decision to move from Washington, D.C. to Spain by 2028. For a number of reasons, we decided to accelerate our plan and I will depart with my husband and 16 year-old daughter later this year. As I decide what to keep and what to let go of, I thought a lot about the quality of life I want to have and who I want to be in it. This got me asking a lot of questions about friendship.

Which of my friendships have really endured over time? And why? What gives certain friendships the power to endure? How do friendships change?

I recalled the last time I completely changed my life – 14 years ago when I adopted my daughter as a single mom. I recalled how so many of my circle of friends stepped up and supported me, while others quietly “left the building.”

I also noticed how many people who, when I shared my plans to move, asked “aren’t you afraid that you won’t have any friends?” I have to say that this simply never crossed my mind. But after the 20th time I was asked this question, I came back to the reflections I was having on friendship, how it plays out in our lives and what I plan to do to get intentional about friendship when I land in Spain.

Neil: You have already spoken to nearly 100 people. What are you seeing?

Margot: A lot of people are ready to talk about the loneliness epidemic, but I wonder if any of them are themselves lonely. I noticed that no matter what the background, everyone has a distinct view of how friendship plays out in their lives. I became interested in the stories of immigrants and children of immigrants, and the role that friends, friends-as-family, and the role family plays in friendships. I have spoken to men about the challenges they face in talking about friendship where often their friendships play out between them, a friend and a “third object,” such as a basketball game or a movie or physical activity.

It becomes the setting for a discussion, unlike friendships between women played out sitting side-by-side on a couch, looking each other in the eyes and talking. I’m not saying one is better, the way of relating as friends is different. Perspectives on this are even more interesting when I’ve talked to trans men who hold the unique perspective of being socialized as a girl, and then living as a man. I have also had conversations where people share stories about friendships that are based, not surprisingly, on a set of shared values, but also friendships they have made with what you might call, “unlikely characters” who expand their perspective and deepen their understanding of backgrounds that are totally different from their own.

Neil: Sounds to me like a book chapter— “Shared Values and Unlikely Characters.” What has surprised you so far?

Margot: I have found these conversations to be transformational and therapeutic. They are transformational in that I have been able to take a view from the balcony and appreciate so many different perspectives on the topic of friendship, such as a woman who befriended a woman 50 years older during COVID, sitting on each other’s porches every Friday or a a man who met a stranger on a Broadway street corner in New York City and maintains contact whenever he visits. I also heard about friend groups – something I know that interests you. I spoke with a man whose six best friends are from kindergarten—a group that has cultivated friendship as “a living organism over the course of decades.” When I asked him in what way they are all similar, he said “I think we’re all gentle and are helpers.”

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Neil: What are you learning from these friendship conversations?

Margot: There is no one size fits all definition of friendship. What has surfaced is that there is a feeling that our closest friendships provide comfort that is effortless, the idea that no matter how much time has passed, close friends slip back into the relationship with ease. I would say that these friendships include care and nurture that sustains their quality. And there’s usually a shared context like growing up together or some other shared experience.

I also found myself reflecting on the idea of a “best friend,” perhaps from childhood or other parts of life and then moving to having a group of close friends. Some express the feeling of how “best friend” seems too binary, even possessive. I find that each conversation gives me a nugget or idea that I will ponder for the next day or more. I also find it therapeutic for me as I apply the lens of what I am learning to myself and my own friendships, reflecting back from childhood to now.

Neil: And what makes you curious?

Margot: I am very interested in hearing the stories of those who feel satisfied by the number of close friendships in their lives, and learning about other facets of their life experience that might lead them to having this garden of deep, meaningful relationships. They have found, or are looking for quality, not quantity. With so many of these people, I hear them say “you’re never too old to make new friends.”

Neil: What’s next for your “1000 conversations about friendship?”

Margot: I want to continue to diversify those who I’m speaking with. Not surprisingly, I started with my own network which produced a lot of interviews with financially secure, professional, middle-aged white women. At the end of each conversation, I ask them if they’d be willing to share information about this study within their world. I now find myself in conversation with total strangers, all over the world, with such rich and varied backgrounds and perspectives. Second, I routinely receive articles, books and podcast recommendations from those whom I’ve interviewed about friendship. I plan to reach out to these authors to see what they’re curious about, and if they have any questions that they’d recommend adding to my interview protocol.

***

Margot and I agreed to do another interview as she continues her work. If you are interested in being interviewed, please use this link to get in touch with Margot. To learn more about Margot, please visit her homepage.

Have an insight about the importance or experience of friendship to share? I’ll see you in the comments!

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I have also cracked open a half-dozen books and followed up on plans to check out some of Beverly’s community wellness offerings. Here are my top recommendations for exploring friendship, wellness and connection.

In Wellness…

10% Happier – Dan Harris writes about his experience with anxiety and panic attacks and how meditation helped him through professional and personal travails.

A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield – I re-read this book, recalling how helpful it was to me in developing a meditation practice after my mother passed and I was flailing. ICYMI: See What’s There to Worry About.

Cold Joy by Libby Delana – My friend, Jen, loaned me this book when I expressed an interest in hydrotherapy for wellness and training for a February ALS polar plunge. More later.

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In Friendship…

My Friends by Fredrik Backman – Childhood friends grow close, grow up and never really grow apart. Makes one think about the ties that bind. This may be one of my favorite books.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans – A story told entirely through letters, sent and unsent, by an acerbic, crusty, wise, scarred and fascinating woman. Letter writing like this may already be a lost art. I have enjoyed raising my email game by becoming more attentive and communicative via e-correspondence while eyeing a box of stationery I received from a new friend, Rich, who will get a shout-out and a thank you note.

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In Connection…

The Beverly (MA) Public Library hosts Community Zen Meditation every Friday at 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. It is a great way to start the weekend with a warm, welcoming practice, led by Joan Amaral. Everyday Wellbeing (Amherst) offers a January jumpstart of daily meditation led by Linda Castronovo.

The aforementioned Jen is Jen Freedson, founder of Sol Tide Community Sauna House where you can go for sauna, cold plunge, hot tub – in silence or social as you prefer.

Take a breath. Interested in breathwork as a way to ease your mind and train your body. I enjoyed a group workshop at Earthly Bodies offered by practitioner, Stephanie Read, combining breathing exercises, guided meditation and light-touch reiki.

And also, don’t forget the gym.

What are your resolutions, or have you ditched them already? Better yet, what have you been doing or reading that’s getting you grounded? Let me know in the comments!

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As we spoke, Margot asked, “Have you made friendships across political and other differences?” This question seemed so timely as we are constantly told how polarized our society has become, how we choose “the flavor” of news and information we consume, and how more of us choose to live in communities where we share the same political views. New research tells us that we are less polarized by competing policy choices, but rather by differing feelings about identity and which party’s ideas make us feel comfortable. That’s why sharpening your talking points and making better arguments seem to have such little impact in changing someone else’s mind. We need to find a new way to talk to each other.

Margot’s questions stirred a memory of friendship I experienced when I was a student at the National War College, one of our country’s “military schoolhouses” which each year graduates hundreds of senior military and civilian leaders from across our government and from allied militaries as well. As a senior leader from the now defunct U.S. Agency for International Development, my classmates viewed me as a fairly exotic bird among the nearly 250 leaders from across our government. I am also probably the only person holding degrees from a Quaker College and the country’s premiere military university.

Sitting in the Arnold Auditorium for our class convocation in a large, three-tiered, red velvet theater, I had a rush of feelings as the military honor guard gave way to the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who exhorted us to dig deeply into the experience of this mid-career odyssey. My first reaction was that my mom would have been so proud of me, immediately followed by a rare moment of career doubt, I asked “What the hell am I doing here?”

With a mix of intellectual curiosity, intense study, and good humor, I soon found my way. One good omen during my first week was when our homeroom phone went unanswered several times before someone called out, “Say Vandelay Industries. Say Vandelay Industries.” With several fellow Seinfeld devotees in my midst, my chest swelled with newfound confidence.

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Still, there were cultural differences to navigate. Campus was on a military base in downtown D.C. When “Taps” played at the end of day, if you were in your car, you were required to stop, exit the vehicle and stand at attention as the American flag was lowered. There were also unwritten rules one learned. On a visit aboard a Navy ship, I was reminded that the galley sometimes doubled as a surgery, and I was asked to remove my baseball cap as a sign of respect. “Military time” was also different, not just the that 4 p.m. was 1600 hours, but on time meant 10 minutes early, arriving literally “on time” meant you were actually late, and coming in five minutes after class started got you recognized for the wrong reason.

Classroom discussions could be spirited but were rarely ideological. They focused on how to respond to national security challenges and how our powerful nation might best combine and deploy our many resources. I may have been a lone voice in questioning the need for a new aircraft carrier, but political divides were less discussed than the variety of mindsets and cultures particular to the military and civilian services and their constituent parts and how they interacted with civilians in our government and citizens around the world.

It was a fascinating year from which many friendships developed. I discovered that we as a group had far more in common than I expected. I quickly learned that I shared with my classmates a universal commitment and unwavering devotion to public service, a belief in the power of teamwork and an intellectual curiosity to understand how different parts of our government might work better together. I found an intellectual openness marked by the ability to listen and appreciate differing opinions. And I found a generosity of spirit, support and genuine care for others. Classmates would soon become lasting friends.

My roommate for a two-week field study in Vietnam and Thailand would be emblematic of this kind of friendship. Assigned at random, this civilian, Jewish-Quaker democracy promotion expert from the DMV was paired with an Alabama-born, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. Don was a self-described “good ole boy” and “missile man” which meant he was the guy manning our ICBM missile silos and responsible for protecting us from nuclear attack.

I am guessing our anxiety dreams about work were vastly different.

We met during the trip’s organizational meetings just a few weeks before departure. I will never forget an early conversation where Don said, “Look, I just want you to know that I want to make sure I’m not doing anything to annoy you – talking too much or snoring or whatever – just let me know.” With so few words, he put me at ease and opened the way to a fast friendship.

Don took a strong interest in procuring a wristwatch, wondering if he could score a Rolex somewhere. We quickly pointed him to several vendors, telling him they sold something called a Dolex (or Don’s Rolex). In Thailand, I invited him to try the local cuisine, describing the selection of hot sauces: “This one is hot, this one is very, very hot…and this one will shoot blue fire out of your ass.”

Before lights out, we would compare notes on the days’ meetings with local officials and site visits. Don shared the fact that his father had served in Vietnam. This trip was not just for himself, but a way to honor and connect with his dad. We spent time at the “Hanoi Hilton” where American POWs were held and visited the Cu Chi tunnels outside of Ho Chi Minh City that played home base for the Viet Cong. Back in our room, we discussed how being able to visit and reflect on this piece of history made us feel. Regardless of where we came out on that conflict, I respected and supported Don in this journey and what it meant to him and his family.

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When we returned to Washington, Don learned he had earned promotion to the rank of full Colonel. As less than 2% of Air Force members reached this rank, this promotion was a big deal. I was both honored and dumbstruck when he asked me to serve as narrator for his promotion ceremony.

While this custom was quite new to me, I had been to several promotion ceremonies that year, and Don’s request touched me deeply. I grabbed the edge of the lectern to stop my hands from shaking and read dutifully from my script as Don reaffirmed his oath to the Constitution and received the eagle pins on each shoulder, surrounded by his family, friends and classmates.

While we went our separate ways after graduation, my enduring connection with Don and connections with so many of my classmates speak to how differences may be overcome. Our differences may seem small as we shared similar traits of race and class, but we certainly identified differently culturally and by experience. We found ways to connect through curiosity, humor and care.

Don made the first move and set us on a course of friendship that I treasure. In doing so, our friendship went to the next level and blossomed from there. It makes me think what move I might make to cross the divides we face. How about you?

Do you have a friendship across a dividing line that you treasure? Or a connection that made a bridge you didn’t expect? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.

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The year 2025 was a heavy one. Even counting the pandemic years, with its disruptions, uncertainty, the loss of over a million of our neighbors, this year left me reeling. 2025 brought a ceaseless bombardment of international and domestic political violence, misinformation, and government misrule. Injustice after injustice.

I tried to fight off the dread by throwing myself into local political campaigns, attending protests, and educating myself to how these times reflect broad currents and earlier chapters in our country’s history. And, in my deeper look at how we build and nurture friendships, I have brought greater attention to the presence and care I bring to my family and friends.

In 2025, the simple question of “How’s it going?” may have yielded a simple “Fine, and you?” response. But as often, it began a deeper dialog about the state of our world. It was not just me reeling from the impacts. A look of vulnerability might reveal the truth many of us grappled with: I’m not well at all.

For those of us with underlying anxiety issues, putting on a brave face and “gutting it out” was harder to do in 2025. As one who has dealt with anxiety for nearly 30 years, I know what it’s like to not feel like yourself. It’s an ongoing learning process, knowing when I need more help than I am getting or learning to navigate a sudden, unseen wave that seems certain to capsize my boat.

It was 1998 when I had my first panic attack. It happened on Mother’s Day.

In our household, Mother’s Day was treated like a national holiday: flowers, gifts, a magnificent brunch prepared by my father with all kids assigned supporting chores. The house and grounds had to be immaculate, which meant the lawn was mowed, roses pruned, and flower beds weeded. We would eat a ginormous brunch, making sure to use every dish, pot, and pan we had—even the holiday stemware. All of which we kids dutifully cleaned as Mom and Dad headed out to a nursery where a bounty of Mother’s Day plantings were purchased. While this sounds like a tale of familial obligation, it was also true that we celebrated with much love and laughter, poking fun at Mom’s love of excessive pampering.

In my 30’s, Mother’s Day traditions changed. I was building new family traditions with my own two daughters. We still would make our way over to Grandma’s house for a family gathering, saving our own rituals for our family time at home. Modest by nature, Kate was as flexible as my mother was demanding as to what constituted a great Mother’s Day. For her, the less fuss the better.

Then came 1998.

With plans to attend my 15^th college reunion on the second weekend in May, I drove from the DMV to Breezewood, PA to meet two classmates from the Philly area. I remember Paul and Frank, excited and looking fit enough to play in the alumni soccer game. We immediately fell into the energy of our raucous, joking team van rides we took to play traveling soccer together.

Somewhere along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I started to feel queasy. It wasn’t that I was sick, exactly, but my digestive system seemed off. I decided to hit the next rest stop. Reaching the exit ramp, my van’s engine suddenly cut out, dropping our speed and leading me to coast. I quickly dropped the gearshift into neutral and started the engine, completing the exit.

When we made our pit stop, Paul looked under the hood while I experimented with the gas pedal. Seeing nothing untoward, we continued our journey with Paul at the wheel. I climbed in the back seat, my stomach now inflamed and my mind wrapped in a swirl of intrusive thoughts: What’s wrong with the car? This isn’t safe. What if we crash? Should we stop and get it looked at? If we do, we’ll never get there. What if we stop and there’s no mechanic to help us? What if they have to order a part?

We had planned to stop outside of Dayton to visit another teammate, Ned, before he and his wife, Carol, left for campus. I quickly ask Carol for a glass of water, then excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Safe behind the latched door, I asked myself, “What is going on?” “What am I worrying about?” Why do I feel this way?”

The loop just kept playing again and again. I couldn’t seem to distract myself or engage with others. My mind bounced back and forth between worries about the car and a digestive system in full revolt. My boat was taking on water fast, heading unknown and my journey in question.

Was it the fact that I realized it was Mother’s Day and I was not where I was supposed to be, according to tradition? Or that this was the first Mother’s Day since my mom was diagnosed with cancer, a year filled with visits to the doctors, second opinions, and putting together her medical team. I learned what a “hospital siege” was: the days of consecutive visits to spend time with a loved one taken ill, helping them to rally, or to say goodbye. It seemed that my car learned how to drive itself from DC to Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore as my mind wandered and worried, as the visits multiplied and Mom’s recovery took much longer than expected.

I don’t recall when I started to feel better. Returning to campus, seeing old friends, and getting into the rhythm of the weekend helped the intruding thoughts recede. They were still there, but more of an echo. The relentless onslaught of worry had receded; the panic of being drowned in my own thoughts remained.

Back home from the reunion, I called for an appointment with my doctor. Describing how I spent my weekend, I was encouraged by the quick diagnosis from the advice nurse: “Sounds like a classic panic attack. Let’s get you in to see someone.” A dozen simple words that brought a large dose of relief—this was something common, and treatable.

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Working with a counselor, I was quickly diagnosed as having suffered a panic attack, brought on by situational anxiety. I talked through the events of the weekend and in future sessions I was able to put together what was going on with me, the mixture of guilt about being absent for Mother’s Day and the impending loss of my mom. She died in December of 1998, less than two years after her diagnosis.

The grief passed. Occasional panic attacks persisted, treated first with Xanax and later with other anti-anxiety medication and a conscious decision to explore practices that would help guard against future rising tides of worry.

I knew that exercise had always been good for me – first as an athlete, then to keep in shape, and now as a way to improve my mood and general wellness. So, I began a walking practice (see my piece Walking Man). My local Unitarian Universalist Church offered weekly meditation where Tara Brach was becoming a nationally-recognized practitioner. Inspired by her insightful teaching and amazingly supportive voice, I became a student, dipping into the literature on the benefits of meditation and soon developing my own practice.

The last piece was tai chi. It combined mindfulness with my love of dance and movement and offered a new practice that helped me relax as I learned the form consisting of over 100 moves, with gentle music to add flow and regulate the breath. I took to it quickly and moved from student to teacher of my local community center’s class. The combination of all these practices isn’t a cure—it’s a solid deck to stand on when waters get choppy.

At age 37, I had my first look at the abyss. It’s hard to think of it as a gift, but given the pervasiveness of anxiety and depressive disorders across our society, my experience gave me insight into the suffering anxiety causes.

I can’t remember my last panic attack. I can also say that today my exercise routine, mindfulness practices and tai chi are no longer deployed as defenses against anxiety, but for the pleasure they bring.

In a year that made us all a little more anxious and overwhelmed, I continue to choose these practices to help me see a world of abundance, opportunity, hope and connection.

Do you have practices that help ground you in your own daily life? Or maybe a practice you’d like to explore in the new year. I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

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