I was at work when I heard the news. First it was a text, then another, with many many exclamation marks. My first text read, "Solange. Oakland. Friday." When I read it, my heart skipped a beat. I knew it was somewhere I had to be.
Coming off of the critically acclaimed masterpiece A Seat At The Table, Solange has been on a rocket ship, galvanizing a community of artists and creatives. To witness her magic in person, on Friday night, I made my way to the Starline Social Club — a venue space whose vintage bar and lounge vibes fit Solange’s aesthetic perfectly. Solange was headlining a concert for equality, run by GOOD and presented by Pixel, and I can’t think of a time when we’ve needed it more than right now.
Since the show was presented by Pixel, a phone by Google, I was equipped with my own Pixel to capture my experience of the night through this unique lens. As friends and family rolled into the event, I snapped their photo. Even in the dim light, I was able to capture smiling faces full of anticipation for the various acts while also capturing iconic moments from each performance.
The energy in the venue was electric. Eager concert-goers were first greeted by the sound of Fantastic Negrito, a standout artist with a vibrant sound. Next up was Kelsey Lu who wowed audiences with her amazing talent. And finally, the night's crescendo ended with Solange. Soft red lighting flooded the stage as Solange emerged to a screaming crowd. The excitement picked up once she began to sing, running through three songs before blessing the Oakland crowd with a final farewell.
Interspersed between performances were highlights and features of the two nonprofit organizations dedicated to fighting equality: the Ella Baker Center and Son of a Saint. I was inspired by the stories of justice and peace, and even more encouraged by the realization that the night’s artists were as passionate about these causes as I am.
The question of the night was, “Equality = _____ for all”, and I think GOODFest has pushed all of us to think a bit more deeply about how we want to fill in the blank to push our world forward.
Gif of Bryan CRanston being angry via 
Hungry and ready.Photo credit 
The mac and cheese staple presentation.Photo credit 
Pizza ready from the oven.Photo credit 
Friends hover around the barbeque.Photo credit 
Seafood platter on the beach.Photo credit 
Scarecrow watches over a vegetable garden.Photo credit 
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.