Without Reservations

This is the second time I am here in the United States. My relationship with this country is not all love love. Yes, I do love it for some reasons while I actually dont for many other reasons including the one that I am so far away from the souls that are close to me. The first time around, I missed everything about me and my life as I knew it, before coming to this country of abundance. This time around, I did sufficiently prepare myself to all that awaits me, both good and bad, in this foreign land. Even beyond it all, I think I was'nt prepared for a situation, without the presence of my dearest friend, Ap. A situation that is magnified in distance by geography and hours. It is not such an easy task to fill in such a huge gap. And that is precisely what this wonderful book, "Without Reservations" by Alice Steinbach managed to do by building a beautiful bridge across this huge distance with the utmost ease. When reading this book, it felt like reading or rather talking to Ap, all along. I did'nt call her or talk to her anytime when I was reading this book, lest I call her at the wrong time and end up disappointed.
 
This is not the first book that I am reading of this author, but surely the best of the three written by her and the two read by me. (The story of the first book I read back in 2008 is for another day) This being a travel book, it takes us through the alleys and side streets of some of the beautiful cities and small towns of France, Italy, London and Cambridge. Beyond the places visited through this book, the varied experiences of the author and the people she meets along the way is what is so endearing about this book. In the process, it took me through my own life experiences, the people who have been part of it and gave a fresh perspective to these experiences.

I have had some great takeaways from this book, but I worry if I can share it all here, since it might become a copyright issue. :) Felt like I was rewriting half the book to myself again.

"As I set out each day, I felt like a young child again, one who had'nt yet learned the rules of manmade time: the rules of clocks and calendars, of weekdays and weekends. Except for the primitive markers of day and night, time lay ahead of me in a continuous, undefined mass. I began picturing it as some kind of strange but friendly beast whose appetites and desires were unknown to me."

"Is belonging that simple? A matter of attitude? Or is attitude just another form of self deception?"

"I do not believe in regret, Regret is an illusion. It depends on what might have been. And that is a waste of time"

"At home I had friends like this, women with whom I could exchange in bold shorthand strokes whole parts of our shared history. It was what I missed most on this trip: my women friends. I could always count on them to boost me up or take me down a peg when I needed it."

"She found the life that suited her, I thought, closing the book. Work that interested her, a house she loved, good friends who came for tea and of course, the company of her cats. It was a simple life but by no means an unsophisticated one."

"It is your time, not your money that you should spend wisely."

"Real friendships, are as rare as happy childhoods." :)



"Fugit hora, memento mori - Latin phrase translated means, 'Time flies, Remember you must die' Why do they say that on tombstones? Would it not be more useful to say that 'Time Flies, Remember you must live'?"




Footnote: As the world goes round and round, think it high time, each one of us realises, Time Flies, Remember we must live. Incidentally, Alice, remembered to live until March 13th, 2012.