It’s 2005. I’ve been in secondary school for five weeks. We’re playing rounders in PE. The teacher explains the rules plainly, pointing this way and that to the cones us students lay out across the pitch about twenty minutes before.
I’m sat cross-legged in my PE kit, feeling self-conscious. Does it fit right? Am I busting out of it? I can’t be sure. I’m eleven years old.
Beside me is a girl I have met before, in a different class. Probably Science or Maths. We’ve spoken a few times, had some polite chuckles together. I like her. She’s a bit taller than me, with a natural adornment of thick brown curls. They cascade down past her shoulders. She has bright brown eyes that are almost green in the autumn light.
The afternoon air is cool. The girl and I begin to talk quietly as our PE teacher continues to clarify the rules of the game. I remember her name from the last time we spoke, inside an aggressively lit classroom. In the cold, we’re beginning to add that familiar flair of warmth to our conversation. I start to laugh at something funny she’s said.
Then, soft, sweet, and innocent, she asks, ‘what’s your name again?’
My quick temper gets the better of me. I’m called to take my turn on the pitch. I huff, get up and say ‘It’s Ashana! I told you already!’ I run off.
Thus begins a twenty year friendship. It was born out of a very human forgetfulness; its memory made all the funnier by a classic over-dramatic reaction from me. A connection was made that afternoon which has evolved and developed beautifully over time. That girl is a cherished friend to me to this day, more like a sister, and can still be as forgetful as she was that afternoon in 2005!
I could honestly write an entire book on the topic of friendship. I’d wander through my life, documenting the many friendships that have shaped me. Maybe one day, I will. It would be a labour of love. For now, I’ll attempt to present my ‘friendship 101’: a love letter to the joy of having friends.
So, what is it, this ‘friendship’ thing? As a shy, sensitive little girl, I found it difficult to make friends. Revealing myself to some other small person was challenging. When I did open up and talk, though, over some playdough or a carton of milk on the classroom carpet, I was surprised to be met with understanding. An affinity among tiny minds.
At primary school, I befriended a young black girl with dainty blue beads that fell from her neat braids. We were inseparable. And through it all, the changing landscapes of our lives – from playing Downhill Domination on the PS1 in her family home, being shouted at to be quiet by our mothers during countless sleepovers, our escapades and adventures out in the streets, so many chicken shop dates in the summer time as teenagers (our mums platonically and affably co-parenting their daughters) – to our current discussions on hair care, relationships and family life in the confines of a Caribbean restaurant that is now closed (!) – we have stayed the course. She is my oldest and first ‘best friend’.
But I’ve yet to answer the question…
A friend is someone that holds space for you. What you both choose to do with that space is up to you. You share something: a connection, an interest, a downright soul-to-soul bond.
I gain valuable insight into who I am through my friends. They have held emotional, physical and spiritual space for me. They’ve paid for my taxi home, shared their chips with me, walked, laughed silly and talked frankly with me. Held my hand for my first sober tattoo and pep-talked me through job interviews.
Having and being a friend is about sharing experiences like these. It’s about learning how to grow, how to be yourself. Authentically. It’s about love.
My friends have loved and carried me through all of the most difficult phases of my life. When I had a breakdown, having spent months in a psychiatric ward, my friends took care of me. I was twenty years old. Very fragile, confused and frightened. They sat with me in my stoic, depressed silence most days. They cooked for me. They dragged me out – they included me, even though we were all scared. They protected me.
I will always be grateful.
On firm advice from my mother, I returned to campus. In the summer of 2015, back there, I made new friends.
In a darkened room at an afters on an August night during the Fringe, I complimented a tall blonde diva on her tortoiseshell glasses. I confidently declared to another, fierce firecracker of a brunette ‘I can tell you’re bare sick and bare nice.’ I talked lovingly to a small Glaswegian sweetheart about roast chicken dinners with lashings of gravy. A little later on that year, I met their insane, powerhouse of an accomplice. We established a coven.
The coven chain-smoked outside the brutalist, greyscale George Square Library during our studies. We drank gallons of cheap prosecco. We danced in the dungeons of Cowgate until our feet couldn’t carry us home. We screamed and cackled until our voices went hoarse. We invited chaos wherever we went. Then we all graduated. Some of us moved away, but the coven remains strong.
What feels most important to me, as I have travelled briefly through my ‘friendship 101’, is that my friends encourage me to step into my power. To be confident about who I am, as a black, queer woman, as a human being – through the lens of their love and affection for me. I can’t really think of anything more wonderful than that.
To me, friendship is a language of love that is sung in the heart, and lasts a lifetime.