Last night we met an old school friend for dinner. It was at a health food-ish restaurant that I was originally somewhat suspicious of, as it was full of gluten-free ancient grains, wellness talk, superfoods regardless of air miles and had calorie counts on the menu. Such places, aside from the Gwyneth Paltrow aura, tend to have either tasteless, over-sweet or muffled-flavoured food. This turned out to be quite good though, with a good mix of interesting flavours, at least in the savoury courses. The dessert was still quick feeble.
It was good to see that firend after many, many years. We did our A’levels together, as part of a small group of science students, and then she went to study medicine while I went abroad. By the time I returned she had finished her degree, got married and gone abroad, and since then I’d only seen her once or twice and always in a large group. She is now a doctor and married to a doctor, some children, and a terrible family tragedy recently. I wouldn’t say we sank back into ease, partly because it was a dark and noisy restaurant with our respective spouses also present, but it was nice to see that living the desi Bay Area life hadn’t made her a smug conservative or overseas Pakistani PTI acolyte.
Then today I went over to her place to drop off a bag as she’d agreed to take it with her to Pakistan. This was a more intimate meeting, even though my aunt was with us, and she talked a bit about the family tragedy. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to spend more time with; my pool of childhood friends with whom I have much in common is hardly expanding.