ediblegarnish: eulogy for my oakland friends

pc. Joyce

Season 5 of Insecure was unmatched for me. Though the overt story seems to be Issa choosing between Lawrence and Nathan, I found myself crying every time Issa and Molly were on screen alone together. And the episodes where the four of them - Issa, Molly, Kelly, and Tiffany - are just chillin' made me feel so sentimental I almost wanted to vomit at how sappy I was being. The four of them had so much familiarity and history together. Their friendship individually and wholly was so beautiful, I almost felt sad about the inevitable ebb and flow of adult friendships that can cause riffs or create bonds. I don't want to lose my friends to life, you know what I mean? I have several friends who I share such a long important history with, whom I love and depend on, but when I watched that episode of the four of them hanging out in Issa's little apartment, my mind immediately went to three key adult friendships I happened to find in Oakland.

When I left graduate school, I felt sure I would never find a community that made me feel as warm and fuzzy as that one did. I felt so secure moving on because I had found this group of people - how are you supposed to make friends now? Outside of school? Maybe I wouldn't really have it.

I met Joyce and Athena and then Emily at a series of dinner parties/rooftop grill-outs/potluck events/what have you. And to be honest, I always left those events like "I like them, but they probably won't be my friend friends." I felt this way because I was acutely aware that I was a stranger, newly moved to California rando, who-is-this transplant stepping into a pre-established group.

In the first episode of that season of Insecure, Kelly is mistakenly acknowledged in the in memoriam section, and what started as a hilarious gaffe ended in a sentimental reminder to let your friends know how much you love and appreciate them. It's not the first time I've seen it played out in a show, but I loved seeing Issa, Molly, and Tiffany give their eulogies with Kelly seated right beside them.

So this is a [hopefully not morbid exercise] eulogy for [some of] my Oakland friends.

The key thing is travel. It's hard to find a travel partner! Often a key test in the strength of a romantic relationship, I think the ability to travel with a friend is just as if not more important. I think a lot of my sentimentality is forged in the throes of deciding, planning, and being lost together. Being forced to spend uninterrupted time together. Mexico City is still one of my favorite long weekend getaways. I loved the city enough to go back despite my general desire to never repeat trips because the world is too big, but I loved the company enough to go back anywhere. Our schedules are so chaotic and busy now, though, that we rarely have time to grab dinner all together one night, let alone plan an entire international trip. In the in between time, we can live our separate lives. And this year we really led separate lives.

My first friend date with Joyce was an afternoon of cake decorating at my first house in Oakland. She wanted to make Hummingbird High's Vietnamese coffee cake, decorated like a fresh cup of coffee was just topped with milk. I remember being taken aback that she wanted to spend her time doing that with me in the first place. I've met people who love food and claim to love food like me but so rarely does that bond actually extend to any meaningful friendship. Joyce seemed so put together and so fashionable, I didn't really understand why she was being nice to socially anxious lil ol' me. But the thing we always tease Joyce about is the reason why I appreciate her as a fixture in my life - she likes to do things. She has a reservoir of energy for the things she cares about that doesn't seem to get depleted. It finds her baking cheesecakes at 3am to meet an order or taking on part time classes on top of a full time job or designing nonconsequential labels that really add that extra layer of care.

Joyce is big thoughtful, which is going to be my way of saying she can go all out. I admire the care she puts into the details, which I feel like I've tried to translate to my food with less success. After all the hectic business of life settled down this year, I realized I missed having her around to round out my meals. Living within walking distance of Joyce was a reason I made it through the pandemic when both our lives were slow and quiet enough to keep a daily fika appointment. We used to joke that Joyce and I are polar opposites, with just a passion for feeding and being fed to bind us together, but maybe that complementary care and be taken care of is what has made us work as camping buddies, roadtrip partners, and evening potatoes in the past.

I met Athena at the same time as Joyce, and I think I wrote in my dumpling post to her that her big floppy hat was a key memory for me. More specifically, I remember how carefree and happy she looked, so beachy and effortless. She was the smiliest person in the room, and she still is usually the smiliest in the room. Where my response to... most things in the world is despair and inaction, Athena's seems to be motivation and action. I admire her resolve to do good and be better where she can. Her dedication to her craft shows up in a lot of ways I see her live her life from building parklets on the large scale to furniture on the small scale to the time we tried to unsuccessfully make sugar domes (heh).

Athena has a disposition that probably belies a lot of her depth. Probably the most shocking thing I learned about her is a hesitation to dig into her feelings because I've always felt she's expressive in supporting others' vulnerability. I feel like she knows what she's worth and constantly reminds us of the same - if you need someone to celebrate your wins as enthusiastically as you, call Athena. But I've also enjoyed being able to share quieter moments with her when it's just the two of us talking about our family shit. Between our New Mexico road trip and her pre-holiday visit to North Carolina, she's seen much of my life, a nice thing to be able to share with any friend. And in between I've enjoyed being able to share our broad "projects" even if we haven't done much with it just yet. My food partnership with Athena has been in Sunday Dinners and dumpling tower and tofiery and finding the intersection of food, architecture, presentation, and experience, which has provoked yet another perspective for me to daydream about.

We still haven't figured out where exactly I met Emily, but presumably, Mexico City was when we started to really become close. Now that seems crazy because I spend so much time doing absolutely nothing with her in her apartment or texting her about how much nothing we're doing separately together.

While Joyce is big thoughtful, I'm going to say Em is small thoughtful. I know that sounds bad but bear with me. I don't know how else to sum up that Em is the one you go to for day to day necessities and randomness. Joyce's inclination to drive the doing is to Em's enthusiasm to do anything. In this, I like to think Em and I have the same level of flexibility and camaraderie, so it's very easy to end up spending an entire evening with her doing a puzzle or watching silly rom coms. She taps deep into my quality time love language. Maybe it's because we're both still single (lol), but I think it's because I realized we're actually pretty similar underneath the surface. We come from similar family backgrounds and probably navigate our lives with similar mental illnesses (lol). I remember a conversation I had with her about being "fun" and what is "fun," and we both agreed that while neither of us consider ourselves "fun," we always end up having a lot of fun. She always has a story, or several whenever we see each other again. This past year I got to be a part of a few of her stories, which I could never take for granted. I mean, when else would I get the opportunity to intrude on a high school friend reunion in Egypt? She gets anxious mixing friend groups, so it felt like an extra honor to be welcomed, and of course it was a lot of fun.

I started writing this last year during the finale of Insecure, and it feels ironic that as I'm wrapping up this post, I'm also untangling some friendship insecurities. Throughout the season, Issa, Molly, Kelly, and Tiffany grow in different directions, and our 30 year felt a little like the summary of season 5 - built relationships, started new relationships, new jobs, new friends, new pups (!), new obligations. Things will always change, and I will always be slow to realize it and then struggle to adapt to it, but I hope we'll be those episodes where the women reunite for children's birthdays and visits to Denver and weddings. Where it'll always feel like old times and we'll have lots of good updates and sometimes bad ones that we will try to see each other through.

Thank you for being my friends.

I forced everyone to brunch with me one afternoon, one part to make the birthday cakes I never got to make during the summer and one part because I was drunk on sentimentality and I it had been awhile since we spent time together.