The Map That Leads to You

by J.P. Monninger

“A book is a companion, though. You can read it in a special place, like on a train to Amsterdam, then you carry it home and you chuck it on a shelf, and then years later you remember that feeling you had on the train when you were young. It’s like a little island in time. If you love the book, you can give it to someone else. And you can discover it over and over, and it’s like seeing an old friend. Can’t do that with a digital file.”

I took a deep breath, wondering why we are sometimes willing to tell secrets to strangers on trains that we would never tell to anyone else. I went ahead, anyway.

You can never anticipate these nights. You can never expect the kind of spontaneous fun we had. You can plan and plan for a party, get every detail right, serve delicious food and excellent drinks, and the party can still fall flat. We had no business being happy and goofy, no business laughing at everything. Rounds of beer punctuated each new burst of energy, and the cheese fondue emptied slowly, the bread and cheese and sausage tasting more and more delicious as time passed, and I thought how I liked sitting here, how I loved my friends, how Jack fit me and Raef fit Constance, and how brave Amy was for rallying.

“I admire a man who wants to see the northern lights so much that he sees them in a gas station sign. That’s a man who understands dreaming.”

“You can’t toast the ineffable. The ineffable is impossible to know.” “Oh, yes, you can, Ms. Amherst. The ineffable is the only thing worth toasting. Every toast in the world is about the ineffable even if the people toasting don’t know it.”

Love finds us, passes through us, continues. We cannot find it any more than we can find air or water; we cannot live without either thing any more than we can live without love. Love is essential and as common as bread. If you look for it, you will see it everywhere, and you will never be without it.