Meeting Mr. K., Part 2

Meeting Mr. K., Part 2

I met Mr. K. again today for dinner and dessert. It may be my last time seeing him in person, perhaps forever, but hopefully just for the time being. I used to think that people qualifying for social security are old, but Mr. K. is hardly old. In fact, the word "old" doesn't quite describe him. He's got the zeal of a 15-year-old (without the teenage attitude) anyways.

We had lovely conversations about various things. I think sometime ago I thought that he would be this wise person who can tell me what the meaning of life is, but it turns out he's no obi-wan. He's still living life and finding out things and learning new things himself. But I found him to be older (than myself) and wiser (than myself) and he gave me a few pointers about life. General things, really, but I think he has further enhanced my ability to "chill out." Imagine that. I like to think that I am young, but I know that I'm uptight and a worry wart, and I take "live as though it were your last day alive" too seriously. No one thing in this life will be the be-all-and-end-all of life. Well, that was my initial reaction during our brief, but concentrated conversations. I really could have used at least half a dozen more convo sessions (they felt therapeutic!). There's really nothing quite like consulting a guru about something. Or something about nothing in specific.

I read the first few pages of The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie, and found it to echo Gabriel Garcia Marquez's (you guessed it!) One Hundred Years of Solitude, my old friend and foe. I've battled with that book for years and never quite got it. Rushdie's novel so far, is more difficult to turn the pages (careful reading was necessary), but not monotonous, like 100. 100 was fluid and the pages turned quickly, but there was a lot of repetitions or seemingly repetetive circumstances and characters that made it difficult to finish. I'm hoping to finish Rushdie's novel before the end of June, because I think at this point, if I don't push myself to endurance, I may never finish. Then Moor will hang around for years, like 100, haunting me.