Old Acquaintances

Meetings with old acquaintances aren’t always a good thing. Too much time might have gone, paths diverged too far. Luckily, last night wasn’t that way.
It began disappointingly as the pub where we were meeting wasn’t serving food due to a gig – the gig being the reason he was there, even if he wasn’t playing himself. But settling down over a drink, and knowing that we’d both changed in the 12 years since we’d last met, it all worked very easily.
He’s a writer, I’m a writer. Music had been our common ground (he was my editor at a music magazine in Seattle, and started me writing music reviews for Amazon when they began selling CDs). It’s not so much that way any more, as both of us have broader interests, but it made a good starting point. And then there was Seattle.
He still lives there, and he and my soon could briefly discuss that and I could dredge up memories, although only five years have passed since it was my home. But now I’m in Nottingham, happy with my partner, happy here and part of it all felt, rightly, like another life.
We talked for an hour, pleasant, easy chat about many things including books. I gave him a copy of The Broken Token. He’s working on a book. I’ll catch up with him again next month when his partner has a Nottingham gig. But for all I wondered how it would go, with some trepidation, it was fine. As easy as breathing, as easy as living…