At the Reunion Buffet

Can you forgive her? Can you do that? There was no response. Because if you can start to forgive, then it will become easier. And? And then you will be able to forgive yourself—and ask others to forgive you.

People don’t talk about mercy very much these days—it has a rather old-fashioned ring to it. but it exists and its power is quite extraordinary

She had always understood that love could have an intense physical effect; could fill a space somewhere in the chest, could turn knees weak, could raise the pulse; could intoxicate, just as could a strong martini or a glass of champagne. Could, she thought, and would…but only if you allowed it, only if you opened whatever portals of the heart needed to be opened. And some people, of course, found it difficult to do that.

…reunions, she felt, were not much more than a scratching at the vague itch of memory. And like scratching, they rarely helped—indeed, scratching often made matters worse, as any dermatologist would tell you.

The reunion, she decided, was an unnecessary and stressful complication to life. We did not need to reheat cold dishes from the past.

…there is faith and faith. One form of faith is actual practice—the rituals and so on—the other form of faith involves actually believing in it.

…the world was a vale of tears—it always had been.

Tolerance was like one of those soothing creams—it drew out inflammation, it did away with the pain.

…people decided what they thought and would not be moved, not even by the most patient, the most rational argument.

The juvenile adage Never kiss and tell had a sound moral instinct behind it.

Unless we do something about the past, she thought, then it will weigh us down to such an extent that we simply cannot move. Is that what I want?

Class reunions were about curiosity; about satisfaction at the avoidance of the mistakes of one’s contemporaries, now revealed in their emerging life histories; about reflecting on the ravages—and injustices—of time; and of realizing, perhaps, how strange and random are the twists and turns of fate.

What we have, we all must lose—that applied to everything, even to that which we thought we had the greatest right. We were tenants of this earth—nothing more.

She had barely talked to Jamie about his school days, and she wondered whether this was another area of experience that was for some reason out of bounds. Had he been happy? Who had his school friends been? She had no idea. There must be a reason why he had decided not to attend his ten-year class reunion; normally Jamie’s instincts were social. If invited to a party, he went, and usually enjoyed himself; perhaps this did not apply to reunions.

. . . for most of us there was a central, unavoidable problem— the world was populated by people who were unlike us . That explained so many wars— particularly religious ones; that explained persecutions and injustices; that explained simple everyday irritation with one’s fellow man: They were just not like us.