What is friendship if not meeting people you know in different places and years? At cafes you have never been to, in bars in some city you did not think they would ever visit you in, in all the apartments you crash in on a work trip, in halls and rooms you never imagined you would share. The casual intimacy of telling someone:
“Here is who I became since we last met. Yes, I like the colour brown now, and yes, that painting on the wall was made by a friend. Did you not know about it? Oh, of course, how could you? Silly me. We’ve only met after so long. Yes, yes, this is my city now, and this is the bar I frequent. Wait, let me call a few friends from here; you’ll like them. Funny how it has been so long, but it does not feel so. Tell me, what happened to you in all the months that have passed?”
It puzzles me in the most genuine, most beautiful ways when I see a friend outside the context I first met them in. To see time pass in this visceral, personal sense makes me think there cannot be a feeling that parallels this one.
“Yeah, this is the cafe we often visit here. Oh, they know me here, or at least, most of them recognise my face. I tend to drink a lot of coffee, as you know. Well, of course, you know. You were there when the habit began. When was it? It was a long time ago, but it only feels like yesterday, right? It would have been a shame if things were even a little bit different and I did not meet you in class, at work, at the bus stop, in the strangest of places, in the most boring of parties, in the wildest of coincidences, in the spur of the moment.”
Look at us now.