☠️ Never start a funeral with logistics
Monday, June 21, 2021
Welcome to the fifth day of summer, and the fourth quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal.
An essay on lessons learned in making friends in 2021
Vic's Picks
For the Record
Plus a cartoon and the strangest slapstick GIF I've ever seen.
-V
Never Start A Funeral With Logistics
And Other Lessons Learned In Making Friends in 2021
“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” - Muriel Ruckeyser
Last February, right before COVID hit the fan, my friend Lee told me about his latest idea. A weekend-long birthday bash, with a bunch of his best friends, culminating in a Savage Race (an extreme obstacle course race similar to a Tough Mudder).
"I'm in," I said, though both of us knew that whether I was in, and whether his idea happened at all, would depend entirely on the conversations we'd have with our wives.
Fast forward through 15 months of pandemic, and on the first weekend of May 2021, it's happening. He's all in, I'm all in, and ten men converge on a park and ride somewhere near the top of the Chesapeake Bay.
But this is not a travelogue. I'm not going to regale you with detailed tales of culinary adventures, medical mishaps, and full-volume belly laughs. Lee makes a living as a director and DP, so naturally, there's now an 18-minute mini-doc of the weekend available upon request.
I knew the weekend was going to be amazing on the sensory front. Lee, like me, is an Enneagram Seven, so... novelty! Woohoo! Jackfruit cooked like pulled pork! But I'd rather tell you about what really took me by surprise: I made some new friends.
I know the dismal statistics about the average friends an American man has. I'd lived it. I'd watched my inner circles of friends hollow out over the past few years as men moved away, got married or divorced, relapsed and/or died. But it took a global pandemic for me to realize the severity of my situation. There I was, in the early months of stay-at-home mandates, and my social life hadn't really changed.
So, last fall, I went to war against friendship entropy. I invited a half dozen men to get together monthly. These are all guys I knew and respected, and all of them knew at least one of the others besides me. I wanted to get to know each of them better, and give them a chance to do the same with me and with each other. That wasn't happening with the random once-or-twice-a-year hangouts I was having with each of them. And honestly? It's been fantastic.
But these are people I'd already known for years. We'd been orbiting at further concentric circles of friendship, and this monthly meetup has been a way to move closer. If you'd have asked me a few months ago, I'd have been skeptical about the prospect of making new friends.
Which brings us back to Lee's birthday weekend. It began at a park and ride in the middle of nowhere. Delaney, producer at Lee's company, asked me to lead an opening activity. So I lined us all up silently by birthday, paired us off randomly, and had each guy draw and choose a question from my Out Of The Blocks cards. Each one then introduced his conversation partner to the group.
The questions on these cards are personal. They're vulnerable. They dig two layers deeper than the typical bro banter. Things like "What's your biggest regret?" and "What are you avoiding dealing with right now?" One of my personal favorites: "Do you have a secret hunch about how you'll die?" Our honest answers catapulted us onto a plane of intimacy usually reserved for old friends. Then, before we could get in the van to be driven to the undisclosed location, we had to build potato guns.
And it only escalated from there. An art prof led an improv session that night. A police officer led an early morning workout, in which the art prof (himself no fitness slouch) dislocated his shoulder.
Good food disappeared and good talk piled up. We pelted each other with airsoft pellets and paintballs.
And it wasn't a flash in the pan. A text thread persists. When we gathered six weeks later with our families to watch the film, there was real brotherly affection. Beyond whole-group dynamics, guys are meeting up 1-to-1 to work on their comedy routines, talk spirituality, and just kick it. Friendships are being forged.
How did this happen? I think I know. I owe the headings below to Priya Parker and her book The Art of Gathering, which is the best thing I've read on how to bring people together well. Consciously or not, we followed her groundrules.
Decide Why You’re Really Gathering
We had a specific purpose - to celebrate Lee on his birthday - and a specific shared challenge of completing the Savage Race together.
Close Doors
The group was just the right size - just a couple more or fewer, and it would have been a very different kind of gathering.
Don’t Be A Chill Host
This is not to say that Lee was micromanaging things - he wasn't. But he'd planned enough in advance, and entrusted enough to Delaney, that the weekend had a real structure and flow to it.
Create A Temporary Alternative World
This is exactly what happened. The amount of time was a key factor in this - something about extended, unhurried time together can accelerate friendships. It's why, when Joanna and I have friends over for a meal, we often try for 4 hours together instead of 2, or 6 instead of 3. A day or a weekend spent with friends will often take you further than the same amount of time split across many smaller visits.
Never Start A Funeral With Logistics
Beginnings and endings are crucial. It wasn't just the question cards - Lee did a great job of setting the tone days and weeks in advance.
Riding back towards the park-and-ride at the end of the weekend, two of the most divergent personalities were sitting in the back, talking. Greg, a former Marine, now contractor, bodybuilder, firearm enthusiast, and Will, a wiry, fast-talking Buddhist/pacifist comedian. Greg said something to the effect of, "When I saw Vic with his truck and his beard, I thought, whew, okay, here's at least one guy I get. Then he pulled out those cards and I was like WTF?!?"
"I had the opposite snap judgement!" Will said. "He gave out those cards and I was like, whew, okay, I can dig this."
We all, I think, were able to lower our defenses, and we found more in common than we ever would've thought.
As Ol' Jack Lewis once wrote, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
Spring 2021 in a GIF
You'll probably need to watch this several times to catch everything that happens.
It all starts to go wrong when the guy on the left gets off the bench to pet the dog. Mishaps, mayhem, misunderstandings... slapstick at its finest.
Vic’s Picks
Here’s a cross-section of what I’ve been diggin' this spring:
Music: Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine
Back around the turn of the millenium, one of my favorite musicians, Jon Brion, produced Fiona Apple's highly anticipated record. Through some controversy that I can't recall, the album was shelved, then leaked, then re-produced by someone else and released. You can still find the Brion-produced version, but even the official/final version retains many of his fingerprints, and Fiona is stellar, so it's all good. I've been spinning it so often that my daughters each have a different favorite track.
Video: How My Little Brother Survived
Some of you know that one of my brothers almost died last May when his car was hit head-on. His recovery has been nothing short of miraculous, and UMD Hospital honored him this spring at their Shock Trauma Heroes Celebration. They produced an 8-minute video that tells the story well.
Podcast: Out Of The Blocks
Aaron Henkin and Wendell Patrick weave audio tapestries from interviews with everyone on a single block in Baltimore City. Some episodes tell the story of a single block, others are topical tableaux. Baltimore has something like 270 neighborhoods, and this podcast is a great way to sample the flavors.
Conversation Cards
The aforementioned Out Of The Blocks cards really are great conversation starters. School of life has other great conversation decks, my favorite of which are their Connect cards (for couples) and their Philosophical Questions for Curious Minds cards (for kids, but not just for kids).
Food: Pulled jackfruit as meat substitute
I owe this one to Chef Kenny. The fibers of the fruit are such that you can shred it and cook it like you'd cook tender pork, and it's surprisingly delicious.
Place: The NCR Trail
This railroad-turned-bike-trail is the easiest biking you'll ever do. Smooth, flat, with gentle curves and long straightaways. Gets less crowded the further north you go. and I were biking at the spring and chance upon a surreal scene. A silver haired couple had set up on a tiny island in the middle of the river and just up from the bridge. They were playing a flute and a guitar, sending music wafting through the spring air to all us passersby. Some folks peddled on, uninterested. Others came to a standstill, captivated by the strange beauty of the moment.
For The Record
What I made or helped make this spring
A Shot Of Hope: Jon's Story and Tyrell & Carlton's Story
I've finally resumed HUM's recovery stories podcast, with episodes following Jon (who broke his collarbone on a bike trip I led) and Carlton & Tyrell (a father-and-son story you just have to hear for yourself).
A Firepit
Forty stones and a bag of lava rocks is all it took. The S'mores Factory is open for business!
Chickens, Round Two
I had nothing to do with making these birds, but we inherited them from our friends the Warrens, and are now tending and keeping them. Our first generation of birds were unceremoniously beheaded by a fox this spring, so this many-colored bunch is our second try. My girls tell me that their names are Tilly, Pigeon, Henny Penny, Daisy, and Winkypeeps.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear about your favorite part of this email. Just reply!
Vincit qui se vincit,
Vic