The ultimate friendship

[dreamflower]

B2MeM Challenge: Wildcard (Athelas)
Format: Non-Fiction
Genre: personal essay
Rating: Gen
Characters: me and the books
Summary: How LotR changed my life

"It all depends on what you want," put in Merry. "You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway, there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the Ring. We are horribly afraid – but we are going with you, or following you like hounds."

I was 15. I was the classic nerd--not popular; picked on by some of the "cool" kids; a few friends, my closest ones younger than I was, but none of them really close in the BFF sense of the word. Being an Air Force brat, we hadn't lived in one place long enough for me to have a "lifelong" friend, and then when I was 12, my dad was killed in a workplace accident and we moved again. I'd always told myself that it didn't matter, my best friends were books, I was "too smart" for anyone else to appreciate...you know the drill. But I longed for that sort of friendship.

Does anyone remember "Scholastic Book Days"? You'd get a brochure and order books from there and then they were delivered to you in class, usually English class. I don't even recall the book I'd ordered, except that it was too short and I finished it by the time class was half over. The girl next to me had ordered two books and clearly was not as fast a reader as I was. I asked if I could look at the book she wasn't reading yet: The Hobbit. It was on the corner of her desk, and I remember seeing a picture of my heart throb, Peter Tork of The Monkees reading that. So I started it, and she let me take it to finish. I brought it back to her the next morning, having finished it--such a fun story, and I already loved the idea of hobbits!

So, I went straight to the school library where I discovered that they had three books by that author. Two were on the shelves, so I checked them out: The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers, and I started reading.

It was another fun story about hobbits--a little more grown-up than The Hobbit, but there was Bilbo and Gandalf and the Shire and it was interesting and intriguing, but it wasn't personal.

And then we came to Crickhollow, and "A Conspiracy Unmasked", and I had my first glimpse of that sort of cradle-to-grave true friendship I had always craved and would never know. That epic friendship of the four hobbits, and later the addition of the Fellowship--it struck something in me and transformed my enjoyment from an "interesting story" to a lifelong obsession with The Lord of the Rings.

It transformed my life in other ways I had no way of foreseeing. It was The Lord of the Rings that brought me together with my husband of almost 37 years now. And years later I discovered online fandom and found that I had many friends and friendships to be discovered.

I owe a lot of what my life is now and what I am now to J.R.R. Tolkien. I hope one day I can thank him.

Comments

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

Greetings, fellow Air Force brat:-)

It was around that part, a little before actually, that hooked me. I don't have one favorite chapter or oassage but my favorite book of the six is the first one.

[dreamflower]

Oh, wow! I didn't know that about you! *grin* Did you ever live in Capehart housing? I pretty much grew up in it till I was 10.

Yes, Fellowship is definitely my favorite of the books, and the parts with the Shire are best of all.

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

I don't think I did. We mostly lived off base.

[dreamflower]

My earliest memories are of those nice brick duplexes in Brookley AFB in Mobile, AL. (Now closed). And then there was a SAC base in Amarillo, TX where the Capehart housing was so new the grass had not even grown in when we moved in. (That base also is now closed.)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Those Scholastic catalogues, yes. I don't think I ever got any such life-altering items from them though.


And then we came to Crickhollow, and "A Conspiracy Unmasked", and I had my first glimpse of that sort of cradle-to-grave true friendship I had always craved and would never know.

I'll remember this next time I'm revisiting LotR.

[dreamflower]

It remains my favorite chapter in FotR and even now I just love Crickhollow, even more than Bag End sometimes.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

I remember those catalogues! We didn't have enough money for me to order books very often, but I was able to buy a very few that way, and I so loved having books of my very own. My favorite place was the library.

I didn't read Lotr until I was out of school and married, but I was a lonely person too, outside of the people I knew at work. My husband was my best friend, and my sisters. Then I met Frodo and Sam and all the rest, and they were my friends. Like you, they led me to this community, and the best friends I have now, next to my sisters and my daughter.

[dreamflower]

I don't know if they still have those Scholastic books, but they were a great way to get books. I couldn't get them every time either, but once in a while. I hope they still have that program.

My husband is my best friend too. I love my sister and brother, but we don't get together much, and my sister and I don't have a whole lot in common anymore.

This community is filled with my best friends as well.

[independence1776]

I remember those catalogs. But I also remember the moving; the knowledge that even if you make friends, you aren't going to keep in contact after moving; and everything that does. I still have problems keeping up with people I've moved away from. (I was lucky; my twin sister ended up becoming my best friend. But being a military brat-- Navy, in our case-- is never easy.)

So I'm glad you read LotR and that it changed your life so drastically and so much for the better.

[dreamflower]

But I also remember the moving; the knowledge that even if you make friends, you aren't going to keep in contact after moving;

Exactly.

It truly did change my life in so many ways.

[shirebound]

What a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing it.

Wow, hobbits *and* Peter Tork. *heart goes pit-a-pat*

[dreamflower]

Oh, I was *SO* in love with Peter when I was 15. I had it all planned out--I was going to heroically save his life and get injured so he'd have to ride in the ambulance with me and fall in love with me.

*grin* I was my own Mary Sue.

[rlaadmin.livejournal.com]

It's so awesome that you met your DH through LOTR. :)))

[dreamflower]

Yes--we were both in college, and I was re-reading FotR, and I spotted him with his copy of TT, and we struck up a conversation. The rest was history. (Although I did not know it, he'd already had his eye on me, but didn't know how to get acquainted with me; he had no idea how much I loved LotR. He was on his second or third reading--I was on about my 40th, LOL!)

[rlaadmin.livejournal.com]

Well, he certainly found the right way to attract your attention, whether he knew it or not! :D

[dreamflower]

True. "Chance if chance you call it..." LOL!

[periantari.livejournal.com]

I love that part of Fellowship too--in "Conspiracy Unmasked" when Merry says his infamous friendship line of not letting Frodo go off alone.

So cool you met your husband through love of reading Tolkien. It's awesome! =)

[dreamflower]

My life was forever changed by Tolkien!

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this. It is the friendships I love in LOTR too.

[dreamflower]

I know that Tolkien said that his main theme was death; but to me his most important and enduring theme was friendship.

[ellynn-ithilwen.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about your dad. You were so young, it must've been awful. :(

[dreamflower]

It was. Thank you, dear.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I was about the same age when I first read LotR. Crickhollow is my very favorite part, too. I haven't yet come across any published writer who writes friendship like Tolkien does. Of all the things I love about his works, it's that he is the prime writer of friendship that is the best.

[dreamflower]

I agree. He really understands what it is, and how precious it is.

Have you ever read The Gift of Friendship by Colin Diurez about the friendship between Tolkien and C.S. Lewis? It's very moving.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it. My feeling has always been that Tolkien's loss of his little fellowship of 4 in WWI underlies his portrayal of loyal, loving friendships more than any subsequent relationships he had.

[dreamflower]

I do agree with that, though I think it taught him to truly value friendship even more.

[zdenka]

That is a beautiful story. It's very sweet that you met your husband through LOTR!

[dreamflower]

Yes. Sometimes when people ask how my husband and I have stayed married so long, I tell them because we have the same taste in books; and that's not far wrong. That can tell you a lot about a person.