Intergenerational Friendships

By Lisa Giraldi

Last year in August, I hosted a campfire at my home. I invited a dozen or so friends, most of whom knew each other, some of whom had never met. It was one of those glorious summer evenings where the food was simple, the company excellent, and the laughter prolific. At the end of the night, there was only two of us remaining by the fire, myself and a friend about thirty years my senior, staring into the diminishing embers of the quiet night. She turned to me and said, it was so lovely being here tonight, so nice to hear young people talk… what an incredible community of women you have here. Her words nestled in my bones. Months earlier I had moved back to Warkworth permanently because I love this town, this community, and the life I have here, but it came with growing pains that sometimes made me doubt my decision. It was a comforting nudge to hear someone else’s observations of what I know to be true. Later that month, I visited a couple (also thirty years my senior) at their beautiful home in Warkworth. I had met them previously, almost four years prior, at brunch a mutual friend of ours had hosted. I remember talking to them briefly and thinking, what kind and interesting people! Our paths didn’t cross again until a summer afternoon years later, but I made a point of reintroducing myself and keeping in touch. As we walked through their expansive garden that August evening, I reveled in the time, the work, the knowledge that had gone into their garden. So many plants had stories, where seeds or saplings had been gathered or saved, for years – a testament to a skill from another era. I’m familiar with flower and vegetable gardening, but this garden was next level. As our visit come to a close and I walked toward my car, one of them said to me, I still find it a bit of a mystery that you want to visit with us… us old folks. I laughed out loud and replied, because you can never have too many kind and interesting people in your life! And more to the point, I find it far more interesting to maintain friendships with people across generations. They agreed; admitted when they got together with friends of their own age the conversation inevitably drifted towards aging and sickness. I agreed: when I get together with friends of my own age, inevitably we talk about the cost of living and the impossibility of the housing market. Both conversations, in different ways, can be discouraging, and it’s easy to get sucked into a world where only one generation’s struggles exist. These two different experiences have been percolating in the back of my mind for months. The delight of getting to know interesting people who grew up in a different decade, have different memories of time, know a different part of Warkworth; people who bring different stories to the table. My mother recently told me about a writing course she’s taking where she, along with a few others in their 70s and 80s, are given a specific writing prompt about their childhood – because, as the facilitator pointed out, often these small (seemingly insignificant) details are lost to history. I love that my mom is part of this group, giving a voice to stories I wouldn’t think to ask about, almost as much as I love reading her stories later.

I lived in Toronto in my twenties and what I loved most was being in a city where, regardless of where I lived or worked, I was able to develop lasting friendships with people my own age. Friends who, regardless of their background or political intent, were interesting and kind and loved food. As I left the city and drifted towards Elora and later to Warkworth, I found it nearly impossible to develop friendships with people in my own age group. Initially it was discouraging, but over time my mindset has shifted. I now feel a deep sense of satisfaction in seeing friends from various decades represented at my dinner table; I’ve learned almost as much from kids as I have from people twice my age. It can be a little daunting, initially, to step outside of what is known and comfortable, to meet and engage with people different from me.

I recently hosted a dinner party that gathered together almost thirty friends in my home. I set the table days in advance and placed name cards at each setting, reveling in the thought of conversations people might have as they met or reconnected with old friends. Just before we sat down for dinner, I made my way to the kitchen and found it brimming with people - tucked against the kitchen counter, nibbling on the cheeseboard, clustered in small groups of conversation. I felt a rush of panic. It was a lot of people. I stopped and stood still for a moment, looked around the room. The youngest guest was fourteen and the oldest guest was over seventy. Over the week that followed friends texted, emailed and told me about conversations they had with other guests. It was heartwarming to hear the ways in which they’d engaged with new people or caught up with old friends they hadn’t seen in years. This, to me, is the magic of community: a plethora of kindness, conversation, skillset and interests that link us to would-be strangers. This is the magic of friendship that cannot be defined by age or generation.