Friends

Tags

community, St. John's

After talking about the community I’ve lost by graduating from St. John’s, I wanted to highlight some significant members of that community.

Hugh: The first friend I made at St. John’s.  We met straight away at freshman registration, and that night our families went to dinner at a hole-in-the-wall (the best kind) El Salvadorian restaurant.  At the beginning, Hugh was the most sincerely kind person I’d ever met.  He always asked if there was anything he could do for you, and you knew that if you said yes, he would do it.  That’s still true of him, though more recently he’s gained (or perhaps revealed?) a more sarcastic edge, and it’s evened him out quite nicely.  Hugh will be in Cambridge over the next school year, so if I do get to St. Andrews this fall, I hope we’ll meet up somewhere in the UK.  How does the Lake District sound, Hugh?

Anna: My mom had heard from a friend that there was a lovely senior girl who would be willing to help with my personal care on campus.  So I went to meet her for lunch, nervous because I was a freshman and she was a senior, because I’m a quiet person and not always the best at keeping up the conversation.  But I didn’t need to be, because she loved G. K. Chesterton as much as I did.  Anna is one of those people who are easy to be with – she makes you feel comfortable just being yourself.  Though she graduated at the end of my freshman year, Anna and I have kept in touch throughout my time at St. John’s and her adventures in the UK, Los Angeles, and now Phoenix.  When I did a summer course in Cambridge, she was just finishing a year of work with developmentally challenged young adults in Sussex (which she was wonderful at), so we met up and stayed together for a few days – some of the best and most memorable days of my life!

Erika: Realizing that Erika was in my core group freshman year (we shared all the same classes), I was glad to know that I wasn’t the only student who spoke maybe once each class.  From my perspective at least, we were companions in silence.  Over our four years together, that companionship grew, until at the end of our senior year, I realized that Erika had become one of my closest friends.  Erika’s friendship is like her personality: quiet, unobtrusive, supportive, and ever-constant.  She is longsuffering, in the language of the KJV – she will be there for you, whether being there means caring for you through long-term hardship or just talking about brilliant BBC shows.  (Did someone say David Tennant?)

Alexandra: Though we were in the same freshman Greek class, Alex and I didn’t get to know each other until the following summer, and even more during sophomore year, when we were in the same core group.  Alex has gone through quite a bit of hardship in her life, and that has both given her a wisdom beyond her years and taken away that saccharine American “virtue,” niceness.  She understands what is really going in someone’s heart, and can address it in an honest way with no sugar-coating.  She also has a wicked sense of humor – the hours we have spent quoting Mel Brooks and Monty Python to each other!

Adam: For various reasons, Adam needed to find a new place to live November 2011 (my sophomore, his junior year), and my family let him crash in our basement for a few days.  A month later, he was still there, and he ended up staying for a full two years (until Strider turned into a demon and killed him).  Adam has some very different interests from me, and I really respect him for writing annual essays on Bacon, Descartes, and Max Planck.  He is now doing some sort of mad scientist work with plastics.  Adam also has a great eye for photography (see his work on his website), and his love for beauty in all things has taught me to appreciate the beauty of math and science.

Abby: One day, I had a bunch of girls over, and most of them were talking a lot about clothes-shopping.  Looking around the room, I realized that Abby had disappeared.  I later learned that she had seen my dad come home and gotten into an hour-long conversation with him about his handyman tools.  (This is not to say that Abby doesn’t have a fantastic fashion sense all her own.)  Abby was also one of the few who decided, one Easter, to climb the 40 or 50-ft high tree in my backyard.  Her laughter is infectious, and her smile is a ray of sunshine.  She is a woman of the soil, a farmer who makes you feel her love of the natural world.  I have so many memories of her picking flowers as we walked and sticking them in my hair.  Best wishes, lady – I can’t wait to hear about your next adventure!

Καὶ τί ἔτι λέγω;¹  For time would fail me to tell of Zeke, Lucy, Sarah, Ben, Evgenia, Jo, Rebecca, Dani, Maggie, Brennan, John, Jenny, Christina, Prentice, Kallista, Virginia, Laura, Maia, Charlie, and so many others.  Thank you all for your friendship!

¹Come on, Johnnies, brush off your Greek, this one’s not that hard!