Friends That Add Not Subtract

We all have stories about the 2020 pandemic, some good, some bad. There was no work, no going out, nothing. We were under house arrest medically, but something good came out of it. Value. We realized that friends and loved ones we put a high value on, rank us very low in their graph. Now we know.

I never forget friends that added, gave me something that made me a better person. Mama was my first friend but I was too dumb to realize it. Call me young and dumb.

Later on in life, I was lucky to find friends that added rather than subtracted. Faz for example, she introduced me to the book The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir the French writer, where she poses the question: what is a woman? I went on to read her other books. Faz used to talk about how Simone was part of the Paris cafe culture, with her friend, Jean-Paul Sartre the writer.

Vusi is another friend that added rather than subtracted because he introduced me to the blues. I thought saxophones and trumpets cried, jumped and caressed, until Vusi taught me the blues. So much love, longing, lynching of black men, Jim Crow suffering and homelessness in these songs! I also love the validation, when the singer pauses for a moment and let the brass section and piano say amen, to the lyrics. 

At the end of the movie, Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls has a song that starts with ‘I was born by the river.’ I don’t know if it classified blues or not, but it is to me. I later learned it was written and sung by Sam Cooke, who was shot dead by a hotel manager.

Electronics. Surge is another friend that added something. He had an office next to mine at work and said computers can be, like spoiled brats and act up for no reason at all. He taught me how to fix the problem. Re-boot the system. I found it a strange term, but it has served me well over the years. I even re-boot temperamental cellphones.

Friends that add rather than subtract, may be current friends or friends that are now long distance, but what they added is always, a live stream.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger