Soul Friend

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Friendship has been quite the topic lately, and not just here at The Sunday Paper. I’ve encountered it everywhere I’ve looked.

Just this week, news stories debated whether European nations gathered at the NATO summit still consider the United States a dependable friend—and what the changing nature of that once-solid relationship means for all of us. Other stories covering the World Cup reported on unlikely friendships forming around a shared passion for soccer and strangers becoming friends in cities across the globe. I also read pieces about how to maintain friendships at midlife, why so many men find themselves with so few close relationships, and how loneliness has become so pervasive that some people now consider AI companions like Claude to be their closest friend.

Friendship comes in many forms. There are close friends, work friends, acquaintances who we call friends when we really mean something less. And then there are the people who carry us through life, those who stand beside us through beauty and heartbreak, celebration, and grief.

Sometimes friendship deepens into the greatest love story of a lifetime. Sometimes it remains friendship and, in doing so, becomes every bit as sacred. It is one of the most powerful forces in human existence. And somehow, we don't talk about it enough.

That brings me to Mary Oliver.

Mary was a legendary poet. She was also my dear, deeply inspiring friend. A new film about her life will air on PBS next month (you can watch a clip of it below), and I wanted to share it with you because it touches on everything we have been talking about together this summer.

Loneliness. Belonging. Finding your way in your own way. The beauty of the world that you uncover when you slow down enough to see it. These are all things Mary wrote about. They are all things Mary lived.

"I got saved by poetry, and I got saved by the beauty of the world." Mary spoke those words about her own life, but they also resonate deeply with me.

Before Mary was my friend, she was a heroic literary figure in my life. Her poem “The Journey” rocked my world. My daughter Katherine gave me an autographed copy for my birthday one year and it hangs on my bathroom wall. It is one of my most cherished possessions. Mary’s question, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”, redirected my life in ways I am still discovering. Before I knew her, I had made all sorts of projections about who she must be, what her life must look like, and how someone who wrote with that kind of grace must surely have it all figured out.

I think we do this with everyone we admire. We look at people who have achieved something—in art, in leadership, or in life—and assume they possess some knowledge we don't. We compare our lives to the surface of theirs. We judge. We measure. We make ourselves smaller in the process. And then, if we are very lucky, we get to actually know them.

As my friendship with Mary unfolded, I discovered that I had projected onto her a life that had very little to do with her reality. Over time, I came to know and love a deeply complex, profoundly human woman. We shared similar feelings of being misunderstood and that our complexity was more of a burden than a gift.

What I treasure most are the long conversations we had that meandered from lightness to depth, from laughter to sadness, and from joy to fear. They were conversations that went wherever they needed to go without anyone watching the clock.

But there is one thing Mary did for me that I have never forgotten. I confided in her about my poetry and about my secret desire to become a poet and put my own story and experiences into verse. I was uncertain, hesitant, and afraid of what it meant to want that.

Mary read some of what I had written, and she reflected back to me what she saw and heard. She gave me the confidence to believe there was something inside me worth saying, something that needed to find its way into poetry. She understood that desire and that longing in a way very few people in my life ever had. She gave me the courage to publish my first book of poetry, I Am Maria, which released last year.

That is what a true friend does. They don’t simply encourage you to do what you're already doing, but they see what is still emerging within you and tell you that it's real.

In my life, I have been blessed by all sorts of friendships, and I'm sure you have as well. I have gained so much wisdom and comfort by befriending women much older than myself—women like Mary and my dear friend Charlotte. I’ve gained wisdom from people I just met, and also from those who have been standing alongside me for decades. In fact, I’m writing to you this week from London, where I’m attending an Alzheimer’s conference with two of my longtime friends who continue to work with me in this space. I’ve made many other friends as well over the 25 years I’ve been in the fight against this mind-blowing disease.

I have also learned plenty from women I didn’t know, but whose biographies and autobiographies have taught me how they succeeded publicly while struggling privately. Their stories have reminded me that no life is without its shadows.

I think of Dorothy Day, who encountered profound loneliness while trying to change the world. I think of Mother Teresa, who wrestled with her own faith even as she was celebrated as one of the most inspiring leaders of the century. I think of Eleanor Roosevelt, so admired and yet so misunderstood, who wrote from a place deep within herself that most people never saw. I think of Wally Funk, who never gave up on her dream to travel to space, and at 82, she became the oldest woman to ever accomplish such a feat. She passed away this week at 87.

These women had the courage to share their struggles, their doubts, their feelings of not belonging, and their darkness alongside their light. I believe they did this so that those who came after them wouldn't feel so alone in those same experiences. So that we would know we were not alone in the not-knowing.

That is one of the most generous things a human being can do. I also think that it’s one of the deepest forms of friendship—even across time, even across death, even between a reader and a writer who never met.

I have also been blessed by friends I met in first grade, like Renee, and by so many friends I met through my work and through motherhood who continue to hold me up. I treasure the friendships I have with my children, my cousins, my brothers, and the men in my life who make me laugh and encourage me forward.

And yes, like everyone, I have lost friends along the way. Some retreated inward. Some, for one reason or another, simply didn't last. And some have passed away. I’ve even had the great honor to sit with several as they took their last breaths. What a humbling and extraordinary experience that was for me. That’s why we’re bringing death into the conversation this Sunday with our essay below about a growing movement to change the way we plan for death and connect with one another over grief and loss.

Every one of my friendships has left me with something—a lesson here, a memory there, and yes, even a space that will never quite be filled. Years ago, the poet John O'Donohue, a former priest whose books fill my home and whom I return to again and again, gave me a concept of friendship that has never quite left me. He called it the Anam Cara. The soul friend.

What does Anam Cara mean? It means to be loved from the deepest place within another person. Often we don't fully understand the role an Anam Cara plays in our lives, yet it can become one of the most profound experiences we ever have. It holds love and friendship together as one. It feels unconditional and otherworldly—mystical, soulful, deeply spiritual. There is a quiet knowing that this person has been placed in your life to guide you and love you from a place that is almost impossible to describe. That is the beauty of life.

And here is what I want to say to you, in this summer when we have been talking so much about loneliness, connection, and the courage it takes to reach toward another human being: You deserve an Anam Cara.

Not just someone to fill the time. Not just someone to exchange texts with. Someone who sees what is still becoming in you and tells you it's real. Someone who will sit with you in both the darkness and the light and never check the clock. Someone who recognizes the beauty of this world even while everyone around them is shouting about everything that is wrong with it. And here is the other thing I want to say: You may already be that person for someone else. In fact, I suspect you are. You may already be the person whose presence gives someone else the courage to keep going, or to write the poems they are afraid to write, or to speak the words they have been afraid to say, or to live the life they long for but have been afraid to embrace. That is not a small thing. That is everything.

You also deserve to be that person for yourself. Internationally renowned mediation expert Tara Brach invites us this week to get in touch with our inner lives and perhaps, in the process, learn how to befriend ourselves.

So, in this summer of friendship, my hope for you is that you find or embrace a friend as deep and profound as Mary Oliver was for me. A friend who helps you look at trees and clouds and animals with awe and reverence. A friend who encourages you to stay the course when you feel like giving up. A friend who tells you the truth even when it is difficult. A friend who you simply know will sit beside you when it matters most—in life and, yes, even in death. Maybe especially in death. A friend who reminds you of all the beauty you brought into this world.

An Anam Cara. A soul friend.

They exist. I promise you they do. And this noisy, frightening, beautiful world becomes a completely different place when you find one. Mary knew that. She wrote it into every poem.

"I got saved by poetry, and I got saved by the beauty of the world."

May you be saved by both. And may you have a friend who helps you see them.

P.S. The film about Mary Oliver airs on PBS next month. We'll let you know exactly when and where you can watch it. I hope you make the time. Then go outside and look at something—really look at it—the way Mary taught us to do. You'll understand everything. Actually, you don't have to wait until the film comes out. Go find a friend. Step outside. Take in the beauty of summer. Gasp at it. Marvel with one another. There is no time to wait.

Also in this week’s issue:

• 3 Practices for Deepening a Friendship

• Death Is Having a Moment

• News Above the Noise—Week of July 12, 2026