Rules for Visiting

by Jessica Francis Kane

For an old man, my father eats neatly, which is a blessing.

Should I count this among my blessings?

And there it was, from Beowulf: “Heorot innan waes freondum afylled.” (Inside Heorot there was nothing but friendship.)

Literally finished reading this for the fifth time with my seventh graders just two days ago.

More briefly: Beowulf is a violent epic about the dangers of being friendless. There’s a party, the misfit is not invited, he sulks outside, then comes in, wreaks havoc, and is killed.

!

Quite simply: Without friendship, you become Grendel. Many people don’t marry and many don’t have children. Some people might not know their mother or father, and a lot of people don’t have siblings. But any person who has lived for any length of time has had a friend. Except Grendel, and he became the first monster in English literature.

.

We live in a time when everyone gets a medal and all villains have heartbreaking backstories. No one thinks evil is intrinsic anymore, just someone making a really bad choice.

Expressed only as a person who knows nothing about children could. Honestly, this snotty nod to hating what is politically correct almost made me put down the book for good. I’m glad I didn’t. But I’m curious about the unnecessary snarkiness of this part. I understand painting the protagonist as prickly, but this is just an asshole’s perspective.

I was interested in figuring out who I was with other people, and why that person was hard to be. I remember my mother, not a great keeper of friends herself, used to say, “If you’re comfortable with yourself, you’ll never be lonely,” which didn’t feel like the whole story.

Indeed.

Halfway through life, I wasn’t sure what I’d made.

making

and no black women. I regretted this imbalance and wished it were otherwise. I’d had

She was the kind of person who had multiple copies of the books she loved most. That way, she said, she could always give one away.

It me!

We stepped slowly, plotting our paths so as not to bump into one another, dipping our heads in acknowledgment if we came too close. These were my people, but I still wanted them to go away.

This is me every time I'm in a museum or national park: Yes, you are my people. Now get out of my way.

Perhaps a best friend is someone who . . . holds the story of your life in mind. Sometimes in music a melodic line is so beautiful the notes feel inevitable; you can anticipate the next note through a long rest. Maybe that is friendship. A best friend holds your story in mind so notes don’t have to be repeated.

Yes, this.

Is it real? I once asked Amber. What? she said. Your life! The things that happen to you. Is it real or are you just really good at making it all into stories? She said, I don’t understand the difference.

Are we a family damaged beyond repair? I don’t know. I do believe in the power of words and stories to make sense of things. I can still hear my mother’s voice: “You’ll be fine without me.” Well, we are and we aren’t.

My mother was the glue that held us together. I'm resentful that I have to be sticky now.