Seeker

Oct 7, 2006

Anna and Erin and I were sitting around our office bedroom this afternoon. Anna picked a book from the bookshelf and started to leaf through the pages until she came upon a pink slip. I reached over and took the book and the slip and told her the story about how, as a high school senior, I cut a class, voluntarily confessed to the teacher the next day, received my first-ever detention and then used the pink slip as a bookmark for the slim blue book she’d picked out: .

Erin looked up from a catalog and asked,“Why are you telling Anna that story?”

“It’s an example of honesty, Anna,” I said, whereupon we three discoursed on the linguistic relationship of lying and telling the truth.

From the office bedroom, I left to drive to Raleigh to celebrate my college buddy Mark Schreiner’s 35th birthday. Just before his house is Quail Ridge Books. I stopped in to buy a volume of Wyslawa Szymborska poetry, but had to ask first where to find the poetry section of the store. Just before I could seek these directions, a bushy-haired high school student stepped up and said, “I need Siddhartha.”

At the party, I sat beside Mark and talked with him of honesty in politics, nuclear power and how the upstate New York wine industry got started. I felt like Govinda, sitting by the river, listening to the wise Gotama, and I reveled in Mark’s intelligence and vivid storytelling.

Anton Zuiker ☄