Staying with old friends

Denzil describes the joys, emotions and feelings of staying with an old friend.

Most of the friends I grew up with live-in faraway places, in Various parts of Australia, the USA, Canada, the European Union, Asia and Sri Lanka, where I was raised.

Our friendships were formed when we had nothing but youthful gusto. Our beginnings were simple. We have a common heritage growing up on an island.

We naturally bond with our old pals wherever we are irrespective of status, wealth, or life status; married, divorced or single.

To stay with an old friend is a privilege. You come to know them again, which evokes excellent memories and old alliances of bygone days. To stay with an old friend is to stay with them and among their families, their things, and encompassing their exterior elements.

When I stay at a friend’s home, I observe many things about them. In my friend’s guest room, I observe the uniqueness of the bed furniture, linen, pillows, curtains, and blinds. I watch whether the colour palette is warm, cool, pastel, diverse or bold. Then I notice the rugs, carpets, side tables, table lamps, and other things around the bedroom. Some of my friends have many things they could have disposed of ages ago but are hanging onto, for old times' sake. Is it nostalgia or a habit of the baby boomer generation?

Looking at their things, I get a glimpse of their lifestyle. I make out the part of their life that I was not part of. I met my friends in my late teenage years and did not know their partners like the way I knew my friends. I get a glimpse of his partner from my surroundings. These colour aberrations and things make me curious about their choices. Is my friend now a conservative type or still radical like he was back in the day? What was his transformation like in the intervening years? I try to decipher what I observe around me.

I borrowed their ordinariness for a few days while staying with my friends. When visiting them, I live with their joys, sorrows, loneliness, and togetherness when I stay with them.

In their living rooms, I feel their stuff. Their plants, wall pictures, family photos, creative décor and wall hangings tell a story about them. I see their furniture. Are they period furniture or contemporary? Are they minimalists or maximalists?

With their TV and multimedia equipment, I get an idea of their media consumption. If their HiFi equipment is jaded, they are hanging onto old technologies. If their TV is on constantly, they watch news channels 24 x 7. Perhaps they watch right-wing media like SkyNews. Do they watch Sri Lankan channels? Then they still have the Sri Lankan in them. Do they watch Netflix or Prime instead?

In their kitchen, I view their culinary habits and eating routines. Is their kitchen equipment scattered around the kitchen or stored inside pantry cupboards? What does their butler’s pantry look like? Are they Costco fans with a pantry filled to the brim? Or do they buy what they need, or do they buy what they want?

Looking at their wardrobe and things, it is easy to determine if they are fashion hoarders. Are they environment-friendly or environment wreckers? I see their fashion sense from their clothes and glimpses of their wardrobes. Are they contemporary fashionists or dressing like men and women of mature age?

This stuff is what holds people together. It is how I will remember them from now onwards. I try to reconcile my past friend with my present friend. There are severe contrasts and similarities between the past to the present.

When I get up in the morning, I see and feel my friend’s stuff around me. It does reinvigorate me. I feel I am now a bit of them. I feel closer to them.

I eat their breakfast the way they make it. It could be all laid on their dining table. This is nice and wholesome. We talk about the days gone by. They talk about their children, where they work, and their grandchildren. They talk about mutual friends and relatives now dispersed worldwide and left behind in Sri Lanka.

You cannot get that conversation experience on a phone call. Face-to-face in their familiar settings, you feel intimate. You feel more open, honest, and robust. You feel more connected.

They take me to their garage in readiness for a trip outdoors. I see their cars. An SUV tells me that they could be more adventurous. A performance, a sports car or a vintage car in their garage means my friend still has his mojo. A traditional sedan tells me that they could be a bit conservative. An electric vehicle tells me that they are eco-friendly and climate change champions.

We head to town, passing beautiful landscapes, waterways, and bridges. I see their surroundings, suburbia and shopping malls. I get a glimpse of their shopping habits and outdoor activities.

They take great trouble making my meals, often cooking traditional Sri Lankan recipes. It amazes me how in foreign lands thousands of kilometres away from the original homeland, they could turn up a traditional Lankan meal for an old friend. They take elaborate steps to make them, spending hours. Finally, my friend opens a single malt whiskey. I must be bringing joy to them. This is one way we can celebrate the soil we grew up on.

I feel good staying with an old friend. But the ultimate and unavoidable act of leaving my friends makes me sad, knowing that my short rendezvous with my friend is ending. When I visited them, I knew it was going to be short-lived. You leave with a closeness that has gone up a notch in your relationship with them. I could stay with them only for a few days, and a bit of despair descends on my friend and me, thinking of our early relationship and uncertainty about when we may see each other again. Knowing that with new chat tools, a video call is only a button away makes leaving a bit less painful.

Staying with an old friend is a joy, one without measure.

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