My Friend Bunmi

How strange is it to know someone? To know them as family; to know them like you know the back of your hand, and suddenly they disappear from your life. Imagine reuniting with them for the first time in 25 years."Who are they now?" "What do they do?" "Where have they been?" and " What do they think of me?" Questions I had to ask myself after reuniting with Bunmi, my very first best friend, just one year ago.

Bunmi and I reconnected through an artist named Danielle Scott, whom I met at an event at the Newark Museum of Arts. During a conversation with Danielle, I mentioned that I was working on a project centered around black hair, so she told me I had to meet this artist, whom she called Adebunmi. At the time, it didn't occur to me that Bunmi-- or as I pronounced it at four years old, "Boomie" was short for Adebunmi. So one can imagine the surprise when I looked Adebunmi up on Instagram and saw a picture of her in the purple velvet dress she wore on our last school picture day together.

After exchanging numbers, we spent nearly four hours catching up on the last 25 years. I learned that Bunmi became a successful multimedia artist; she is what art critics call an "art market fave." She had an art studio downtown, Newark, right by my place, so we made plans to meet up and have lunch at a vegan restaurant, conveniently named Urban Vegan. To say it was surreal seeing my 5-year-old best friend at 30 is an understatement; the little girl I knew traded her short box braids for locs that curled around her face as if they were giving her a warm hug. Her eyes looked the same, though.