New is Good, But Old is Best
Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.
New-made friendships, like new wine,
Age will mellow and refine.
Friendships that have stood the test -
Time and change – are surely best;
Brow may wrinkle, hair grow gray,
Friendship never knows decay.
For ‘mid old friends, tried and true,
Once more we our youth renew.
But old friends, alas! may die,
New friends must their place supply.
Cherish friendship in your breast-
New is good, but old is best;
Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.
Joseph Parry
When I was in grade school I had an autograph book — slightly garish now in my mind’s eye — but very beautiful from the perspective of a ten-year-old. It had a bright turquoise faux-leather cover trimmed with gold curlicues; the pages were a little girl’s heaven of pastel shades of pink, blue, green and yellow, like Laura Secord’s French Mints. The paper was heavy, matte finished, and the leaves were sewn together into the binding. The book smelled deliciously of paper. All my friends had signed the book, and occasionally I had even gathered my courage and asked a favourite teacher to sign. My music teacher wrote, “Never ‘b flat’, Never ‘b sharp’, Always ‘b natural’.” I thought that was pretty clever, and maybe it is; I still remember it!
One little wisdom saying that was repeated often in the pages of my autograph book treated the subject of friendship. “Make new friends, but keep the old…” Amazing how a few decades have proven the veracity of Parry’s homely little poem. The ebb and flow of friendship is a matter of the heart, an unpredictable, uncontrollable and sometimes painful mystery. Essential to healthy human functioning. Like hugs, one can never have too many. But it’s the old ones that are perhaps the most precious. The mellow patina of the older friendship carries more value in the heart than the glitter of the shiny new one.
When I was on play tour last year I made contact with Lindsay, a friend from university days. We’d met as art history students in Italy one spring. Lindsay was later to describe the six weeks in Venice and environs as ‘life-changing.’ But, catching up with Lindsay in Saskatoon last summer, it seemed to me she hadn’t changed. Not a bit. Still as brilliant and quirky and endearing as ever. As purposeful of movement and creative and warm-hearted as she’d always been. We sat over an extended lunch in a restaurant aptly called “Calories” and Lindsay, a natural born gastronome, enjoyed her food with vocalisations and sighs, just as she had over pasta and pastries in Venice many years ago.
Another friend of mine has said that old friends are important because they know our history. Perhaps that’s what made it so easy to remember the rhythm of our friendship, Lindsay’s and mine. Even though much of our conversation was about catching up on each other’s lives, it seemed no time had passed since we’d last spoken. As though we’d chatted on the phone yesterday or met for coffee last week, when really there had been a hiatus of many years. Such comfort, such delight in the sharing, the remembering, and the surprise twists our lives have taken. It amazes me that in spite of my neglect this friendship still thrives. Perhaps the early care and watering of the first five years sent such a thick tap root into our hearts that no amount of later neglect can destroy it.
Lindsay is an accomplished visual artist, primarily a print-maker, although she has fearlessly experimented with other media and collaborated with other artists to create a body of work that actually floored me when I realized its scope. After lunch we walked through the August heat to the little house she has shared for many years with her husband and cats — a house I’d never seen, but to which I’d mailed countless letters, back when I still wrote letters. A familiar address, though one unseen until this moment. It is an artist’s house with an attention to architectural detail and decorative features, and a wealth of artefacts, found objects, Lindsay’s pieces and pieces of other artists received in trade, all illuminated like rare treasures by angled streams of sunshine. Colour, light, texture, whimsy. I would love to have had several days, weeks even, to poke around, to examine and exclaim over all the treasures.
Lindsay has her own print studio in the basement, business-like presses and water baths and racks for drying the prints. Drawers of her work. Boxes of photos, letters and other paper items, all raw material for her art. She showed me letters that her father had written her, cards and letters from her mother lovingly protected in albums. These are specimens that she will someday incorporate into a print or other object. Her fascination with the written word is no less than mine, but is of a different quality. She sees the shapes, the lines, the rhythms of these individual examples of penmanship, I hear them in the words themselves. Her business card is simply her signature followed by the word “Artist.” Ideas abound with that girl. The quantity and quality of her production told me that I have some catching up to do to come into the fullness of my gifts, but her ongoing creativity and drive tell me that it’s not too late.
‘I have been a poor correspondent,’ I told her. She didn’t disagree. We exchanged email adresses, and Lindsay, the author of the longest letters in the most beautiful handwriting in the world, exclaimed ‘Now there’s no excuse!’ Somewhere in boxes I have kept the many long, detailed newsy letters that Lindsay has written me over the years. Closely written, the penmanship enviable, they are their own works of art. Perhaps I should send these paper artefacts, this paper trail of our friendship, back to Lindsay, to make something new out of something old. Perhaps I should send her my autograph book, to see what she can create out of the pastel pages, out of the inelegant penmanship and the exquisite wisdom of my ten-year-old friends.
Cherish friendship in your breast-
New is good, but old is best;
Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.
.www.artistsincanada.com/embree/
Visit My Website
Visual clues are as strong as scent to me. Your grade school autograph book brought back the memories of my fern green Girl Guide autograph book. This treasure of simple and silly poems encapsulated my youth. Simple, happier and innocent times – lest we forget!