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April 29, 2003

"When you are in love — you know this, all of you — you are not yourself. You have no self. The world is a grid of shining correspondences. And the correspondences sing like angels. You cannot defile them with your intentions. You cannot undo that order that is suddenly revealed to you. All you can do is become part of it and move in hallowed light.

"Your friends make jokes about your absentmindedness. Your parents tell you you're deluded. All the people around ask you to come back to the person they know. But you are dead to them. The world has no meaning to you. Everything you once cherished is irrelevant, and you are far above it. The only truth you know is the truth around you. And you know, more than that, that whatever you love, you cannot fail to love. You can no more be argued out of your devotion than a compass can be told not to find the north, the tides instructed not to follow their moon.

"'Don't come to me with reasons,' you tell your friends. Come to me with prayer bowls and songs. . . .

- from Abandon by Pico Iyer

Yes, I know this exists. I've been there, but it sometimes seems as elusive as The Snark.

At camp, as a kid, I was led whole-heartedly into night-time snark hunting. I kept asking what does a snark look like? What are we looking for?

I've only been marginally more successful at finding abandon than finding the snark.

I first read Pico Iyer on the recommendation of a couple I met in a restaurant in Paris. It was Thanksgiving, I was travelling alone, and it turned into one of those transcendent experiences abroad. Le Polidor, where James Joyce hung out near the Sorbonne, is one of my favorite places. There are little cubby drawers on the back wall where the regulars can file their cloth napkins, there are long tables so conversation inevitably ensues. I probably had to force myself to go there alone, even knowing that it was a good place for eating solo.

I ended up in a long conversation (spanning several restaurants and evenings) with some great table-neighbors, who I eventually also visited in London.

Posted by rosebaby at April 29, 2003 10:59 AM