Our 7th Wedding Anniversary

In his book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, poet David Whyte shares a profound essay on friendship. This essay, shared below, struck me like an arrow the first time I read it.

“Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. 

A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die.

In the course of the years a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves, to remain friends we must know the other and their difficulties and even their sins and encourage the best in them, not through critique but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less of themselves.

The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence.

But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

Phew. Does this strike you, too?

I read it again and again. The last paragraph began to stand out to me as a description of friendship and partnership. I thought, “What if I replaced the words ‘friend’ and ‘friendship’ with ‘partner’ and ‘partnership’? This might describe, then, my experience of marriage.”

“But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true partner or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of partnership is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

The ultimate touchstone is witness. It is the privilege of having been seen by someone. It is the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another.

I have very few revelations to share as we celebrate seven years of choosing and seeing one another every day of every month of every year for seven years. But, I do have this essay to share with you—one that resonates beautifully and easily as I reflect upon both friendship and partnership.

See more on Instagram here. You can find a local bookstore that carries Consolations here. You can also read about our sixth anniversary here.

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