The beauty of ephemeral friendships

Because the people I consider to be my closest friends are those I’ve known for at least ten years, I’ve thought of friendship as the consequence of something long-term. Representation pic

There is a form of female friendship that has perhaps historically gone under the radar, particularly so post-Industrialisation, when time got commodified and families became nuclear. I hadn't considered it myself, although I'd touched on the subject in two previous recent columns. In one, I was pining for friendship in the town in which I live in South Tyrol. I felt envy looking at other mums who had shared histories together, perhaps went to the same school or grew up next door to each other. I see them hanging out with their kids, having picnics and supporting each other. Looking at them made me feel alienated from my social support system back home. Then I wrote about how a tourist mother approached me in the park when I was there with our kid and suggested us being friends and possibly meeting up the next time she visited. Yesterday, when I was in the town swimming pool, I met another tourist mother with whom I had a brief but meaningful exchange. The day before I'd had another conversation with a local mother at the playground. I have begun to realise how having a child exposes you to the world, often compelling you into moments of direct contact with strangers. When we travel, our child often responds to people around us by smiling or playing peek-a-boo. If I'm alone, I am dependent on strangers to help me usher the stroller in and out of public transport situations.

When the stranger in question happens to be another mother, the ice is broken quite quickly with a singular question: How old is your child? Suddenly we find ourselves exchanging notes, sharing information about our kids' particularities, their habits, milestones, teething trajectory and everything in between. Until now, I had categorised all these exchanges as off-hand and casual, nothing remarkable. But when I was telling my partner about it, I described it as something akin to how smokers end up befriending each other… their addiction confines them to designated spots, placing them in close proximity with each other, setting the scene for conversation to occur. It's similar to parenthood. You end up in a park or playground or pool, always in the vicinity of others like you and you begin to chat effortlessly because there's much in common, even if you come from different social contexts. I had been dismissive of this because I felt sure I had little to share with people who live here who come from relative affluence and whose citizenship affords them privileges I can only dream of. Yet, if I allow myself to gloss over that fact, I find I can make room for such ephemeral friendships.

Because the people I consider to be my closest friends are those I've known for at least ten years, I've thought of friendship as the consequence of something long-term, a deep investment in each other's lives and vulnerabilities across a wide expanse of years. You get to know each other's parents, lovers, pets, exes and friend circles. You visit their homes. You remember their birthdays. But just like there is something to be said about short-term love affairs that have all the intensity of a romance and are not shortchanged by the brevity of their duration, these ephemeral moments of contact with other mothers are somehow similarly momentous. For those informal minutes, you reveal yourself to each other, you plumb, gracefully, eagerly, and without restraint, the depths of your vulnerability. Knowing you may never meet this person again allows you to be vocal about your fragilities or to expose yourself to their kindness or to be kind to them, too, to listen deeply and allow for moments of total empathy. I find myself always taking notes, learning from things they tell me. It's as if we're trading secrets, letting the other know what worked for us and what didn't.

Beyond these instances of physical contact, there has simultaneously been a surge in my correspondence with people I went to undergrad with, or who studied with me in university but with whom I may not have been in touch ever since. When I find they are either about to be parents or have become a parent, I spontaneously reach out. I begin checking in on them, sharing whatever I can in terms of resources without being pushy or infantilising them. And so I have come to inherit an ephemeral network of intimacies that glow in the background of my life. These exchanges are rooted in the mundane and occur at the level of chance. Every day I learn to cherish and embrace them and to thank the stars for their occurrences. They, too, are tiny miracles; incidental yet monumental.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.