Friend #17 - Jeff
The guy from Miami's Art Basel
Jeff, so glad I could speak to you.
Jeff and I met in 2021 through a friend of a friend during Miami’s Art Basel. I remember him asking if I spoke French and we spent the rest of the night talking about my upbringing in Canada and his in Haiti.
“I moved to the US unexpectedly as a kid,” he tells me when we virtually connected last week.
He explains that he completed his undergrad at Bowdoin College where he met Danny, the friend who introduced us. They immediately gravitated toward one another as minorities. “Danny is from Puerto Rico, another guy in our friend group is from Brazil. Our friends are from all over the world. We would talk about the American kids,” he jokes.
“What was the main difference?” I ask.
“Americans like to be the center of everything,” Jeff says.
“They’re individualists,” I reply.
He goes on to recount his childhood in Haiti. “We would always go out of our way to make everyone feel included.”
I’m reminded of an experience I had nearly fifteen years ago. When I was in the sixth grade, a girl named Jenny was spending the year in Canada with her family from Korea. She quickly clicked with my friends and me and we spent nearly every recess together. One day she said something that I still think about, “In Korea, we all play together. Here, the five of us are together, the four of them are together.”
I called one of my best friends after my call with Jeff and I asked her, “Why didn’t we all play together?” And she said, “We literally couldn’t, we all unknowingly connected as immigrants.”
Jeff is currently in New Hampshire working towards his Ph.D. His parents left Haiti to give him a better life but his dad plans to return at some point to enjoy his old days. “He wants to go back to his community and his friends,” Jeff says.
“Do you feel at home in any particular place?” I ask.
“When I first moved from Haiti, I lived in Florida, my family is still there. Now, I’ve lived in many different places for school and I think it’s the people who make me feel at home, not the place. So if I visit my brother in Texas then that is home for a short while. But I think I want to eventually settle somewhere warm with a more easygoing way of life,” he says.
“Tell me a story about friendship,” I say.
“Let me think,” Jeff replies.
“In my first year of college, I met this kid who was a senior and there was a program that paired international students with host families. Basically, the host family lived around the campus and if you ever felt lonely or wanted away from the weekend chaos on campus, you could go spend time in their house or go have a meal with them. Anyway, the kid was graduating and he wanted me to meet his host family and be the new host ‘child’. I was hesitant because I thought ‘how is it going to be, this black kid with a white family.’ When I met them, a couple in their 60s, we got along so well and they were very pleasant to be around, so they quickly became family,” Jeff details.
The host family often had him and his friends over for dinner. “One time, the woman of the couple, said ‘you’re turning this house into a frat, bring some girls,’” he laughs.
Jeff still spends at least one month every summer in Maine with the couple and some of his undergrad friends. The friend group traveled together to celebrate their graduation from Bowdoin College which included the couple and their children who are also in their 20s.
“Maine is beautiful. I’ve been to a lot of beautiful places and Maine is really one of the nicest. But these people are family, we do not miss each other’s life moments. They like to stay young, the husband is just one of the lads when we hang out,” says Jeff.
“What do you think makes a good friend?” I ask.
“I think a friend is someone you don’t have to filter yourself around—thoughts, emotions and if I’m being really stupid you can tell me. Sometimes you realize you can’t be yourself around someone and you need to avoid those people,” he says.
We end the conversation by speaking in French. I tell Jeff about my plans to visit Europe in the spring and ask him for his advice on Paris restaurant recommendations. He’s recently visited Saint Tropez and suggests that I try to check it out if I ever have the chance.
“Send me a picture for this article, maybe one of you in Maine,” I say.
“Everything ends this way in France—everything. Weddings, christenings, duels, burials, swindlings, diplomatic affairs—everything is a pretext for a good dinner.”
— Jean Anouilh
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Hey Friends! I’m working on turning 52 Friends into a book. It will be a collection of essays about loneliness written by you. Inevitably, the selection process is tricky but if you have an experience with loneliness that you’d like to share, please contact me at miriamsamdur@gmail.com.