Originally published in the Courier News
Risa Cantimbuhan and Cheryl Trivino take hanging out with their girlfriends literally.
Cantimbuhan and Trivino who met in college, scramble up rock walls after work on Mondays and Wednesdays because they love the sport of rock climbing and ow it enhances their friendship. They tried it once and were immediately hooked. Now these two women from Somerset and Edison climb the rock walls at the NJ Rock Gym at least twice a week. In the warmer weather, they head outdoors and climb the Shawangunks, known to climbers as the ‘Gunks, in New Paltz, N.Y.
“It’s a bonding experience because you always have a partner when you are climbing and you have to trust her completely that you won’t fall,” said Cantimbuhan, a 28-year-old Process Engineer for Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson Co. “Cheryl and I push each other to go to the top. I say things to her like ‘You can’t come down, now,’ until she gets to the top. We keep each other going.”
The challenge of climbing makes it fun and rewarding, said the friends. “It is a mental and physical sport where you use muscles you have never used before,” said Trivino, who is a mechanical engineer. “The best feeling is when you work on a route for a long time and then you final get it. It clicks or you just build enough stamina or strength, or learn how to do a move a certain way, and you finally finish it. Even outdoors you fall and fall, but you stay up there and keep trying. Then you get it. I love that!”
While women have long turned to exercise to keep their friendships fit, few sports rival the bond-building bonus of rock climbing. Because rock climbing is less about upperbody strength than it is technique and precision, women make excellent climbers and the need to trust in a climbing partner can bring a friendship to new (ahem…) heights.
Although not all women are getting attached at the hip with figure-eight knots and carabiners, they are finding new ways to fit friendship into their busy schedules, putting a spin on the traditional “girls night out” and finding that sometimes the best alternative is staying in.
“Women deal with maintaining friendships throughout their lifetime, but it does get so difficult for women who are leaving college, moving for jobs, marrying and having children, “ said Nancy Hollmann, psychologist and coordinator of Women’s Psychological Services at Somerset Medical Center. “Family takes priority and it’s easy to lose your sense of self.”
“A loss of sense of ‘me’ can lead to depression as women begin to question who they are, what they like, and what they want,” cautioned Hollman. And it’s great to have a variety of activities, said Hollman. Not only to keep interests up, but also add a new element to the friendship. “You grow in the process,” she said.
Cooking and talking and being friends
For Jaime Das, Marisa Morigi and Angela Pata, regular dinners in are a fun way to hone their culinary skills as well as to keep in touch.
“We’re not in college anymore and we don’t have a lot of free time to get together, so ew have to make time to hang out,” said Pata, who met Morigi and Das at Rutgers University in 1994. “We are all going through big changes in our lives right now and going in different directions. So we need these dinners to stay together and grounded.”
Reality television shows and Indian take-out food first brought the busy friends together again regularly. But now when they meet each week, they hover around pots on the stove and chop vegetables for their regular Wednesday night feast. They continually up the ante, making each week’s meal more elaborate than that of the previous week. These women, like many others in their late 20s who are balancing careers, significant others and children, have to carve out time in their hectic schedules to see their girlfriends. Each week they take turns coming up with a theme for the dinner such as ethnic or seasonal foods. Using that theme, each woman secretly prepares her dish that will be unveiled at the dinner.
“It’s something definite that I can rely on and look forward to in the monotony of the workweek and allows us to bond with each other,” said Pata, who is a 27-year-old eighth grade teacher. “We enjoy impressing each other with what we can cook, and I know that if I haven’t seen my friends in a while that I can count on seeing them on Wednesday night.”
“Anyone could buy a dinner at a restaurant, but it’s more fun to cook and eat at someone’s home,” said Das, 26, who usually brings fruity desserts. “We try dishes that I wouldn’t normally cook for myself, but I always like whatever we make.”
All three women say that these dinners have inspired them to cook more. By trying all these different meals, Morigi, 27, has learned about food and sharpened her culinary skills. “I never really used complicated recipes or gourmet ingredients before, but now I’m bonding with my friends over cooking and even exchanging recipes,” said Morigi, a curator at the Historical Society of Princeton. “It’s funny we didn’t really choose to start cooking together, it just started happening, and now we love it.”
“it’s definitely more fun to stay in sometimes,” Morigi added, “but there is that drawback of cleaning up.”
There’s no denying the power of the kitchen as a bonding tool. But if the menu starts getting stale, it might be time to add a little spice.
Variety is the spice
While many a millionaire has been made on the sheer power of women coming together for a couple of hours to catch up (and buy a candle or a compact), women are hosting a new type of party, what Cathy Wilbur likes to call her “goddess gatherings.” The 34-year-old Bridgewater resident invites her friends (most of whom are married with children) to her home for a simple breakfast, followed by pampering outside the kitchen. One recent Saturday morning, Wilbur invited a yoga instructor to lead friends in a group class.
“I figured Saturday mornings kids are watching cartoons, husbands are home, and women can afford the hour or two,” said Wilbur, who does not have children. The group plans to get together again, exploring other in-home options including belly dance instruction, wine tastings and maybe even a psychic reading.
And why not? Women have done the book clubs and cooking exchanges. And how their heading things up a bit.
Getting cordial with friends
Denise Dunbar, a 26-year-old accountant from Philadelphia is one of a group of women who makes cordials with her friends. It began when one friend suggested that the group have a cookie exchange for the holidays. But baking cookies didn’t appeal to any of these young women, recalled Dunbar, and neither did sitting around eating them. So one of the women went to a bookstore and left with a book of how to make cordials at home.
Now Dunbar and 10 of her friends, relatives and co-workers gather yearly to exchange and taste their homemade drinks. And, like the candle party, men aren’t invited. Each woman picked a different recipe and got to work months before the party. Since cordials need to sit in a cold, dark place for one to three, or sometimes even six, months, they had to start early. After they mixed all the ingredients, they put their mixtures into 10 small bottles that they found in the dollar store. They decorated them with computer-generated labels and ribbons or hand painting. Then, they put them away for a few months.
On the night of the exchange, they me at one of the ladies’ houses and brought their creations along with ingredients to make drinks with them. Dunbar, who made a Macadamia Nut cordial, brought milk for hers. Her co-worker, who made Peppermint Patty, brought ice cream.
“It was a lot more fun than baking cookies,” Dunbar said. “Since making the cordials is so complex, it felt like a big accomplishment when we were done. After that, it was just fun to hang out with the other girls and drink our homemade drinks.” The 10 women are busily preparing their flavored vodkas for next year’s party in December.
Get over it
Don’t think you can find time for getting together with friends?
“Think about what you’d tell your sister, your friend, your daughter,” Hollman said. “We recognize when someone needs personal time. We’re generally good about giving advice, but not so good at taking our own advice.”
Still, for those who cannot get past the guilt, go around it.
Many women find quality time be sharing their time with a community. Wilbur also organizes a group of friends to attend a United Way-sponsored holiday-gift wrapping day, where women work as a team, selecting gifts for families to which they’ve been assigned and spending the afternoon catching up personally while wrapping presents.
“After the gifts are generously donated, we get together to organize and prepare them to go out to the families. There’s a lot of joking and sweating and talking,” said Wilbur. “And that giving spirit gets shared.”