Flights and Perchings II

Many accounts throughout Streams 7 looked at the subject of friendship from various perspectives of urban adolescents.

I will always remember you
for the beautiful times
you gave me
I will always remember you
for making me feel free

I will remember you forever
my friend because
you showed me how
to be me
(Sheila, page 83)

The depth and beauty of friendship was expressed in Spanish as well as English:

Tu eres una bella persona,
importante e intersante.
Tu amor hacia los demas
es immenso y profundo
como el mar.

Tu honestidad y tu sinceridad
enriquesen dia tras dia
el desarrollo de tu vida.

Eres un buen amigo
que sirve como antidoto
a quien esta desilucionado
de lo bello de la vida.

Reconoce la importancia
de la buena educacion;
por eso te preocupa
por la superacion tuy
y de los demas.

Tu eres un ser inigualable.
Siempre esta dispuesto
a escuchar al noble,
lo mismo que al torpe.
Pues para ti todos somos
hijos de Dios.

Que Dios te bendigas siempre “Eugenio”
y que nuestra amistad
perdure por toda una vida.
(Valentin’s “Querido Amigo” and his English translation are on pages 20-1)

The difficulty of making friends was expressed in “My Point of View”

I find it hard to make friends with people
I want to be liked by everyone
I think that I’m too serious sometimes
I know that I have a good personality
I am kind and loving when I want to be
I love when I am treated equally as everyone else
I hate hypocrites who lie and deceive you
I desire love and eternal happiness
I say that I strive to get what I want
I feel that life is sometimes unfair
I dream of a better place to live in
I am going to make it against all the odds that may lie ahead.
(Sophy, page 19)

Peer support during rehabilitation was the essence of correspondence between V and Tiger: “And remember, if ever you feel messed up inside, that in V you have a friend to talk to, even if it’s only through the computer.”
(page 25)

In “My First Full-Time Job” friends helped each other find work in the city: “One summer two of my closest friends, Harrison and Mark, joined me in a hunt for jobs. Harrison and I went about canvassing Manhattan for job openings. We looked for almost any type of work except fast-food work.”
(Trevis, page 97)

Betrayed friendship, guilt, urban junkyards, greed, drugs and the unbearable weight of the paranoia dominated the narrator’s conscience in “Murder He Wrote”: “This place was known to me and my man as the car cemetery. In there was a little of something: crack bottles, needles, old rags, human waste and dead dogs that either got shot or electrocuted.”
(William, page 7)

In “An Experience That Changed My Life,” a tragedy at a celebrity basketball game in City College led the narrator to realize: “how much I took life for granted. It also helped me to understand that you should always tell the people you love how much they mean to you, because you’ll never know when they will be gone! I always thought nothing like this could happen to me, but I’m living proof that it can!!!”
(Andrea, page 13)

Streams 7