  I stared at the book lying patiently on the woolly rug. The name Waiting feels so apt for this moment.
Ha Jin's Waiting is the current novel that I am unwinding with every night before I sleep. It talks about how a man, after being married for eighteen years, decides to return to his hometown again to divorce his wife so that he can be with the woman he has loved all those years when he was married. Immediately one might conjure up images of a pair of adulterous and immoral beings thinking only about their own selfish desires. But somehow this is not how it was with this story. The two lovers, if they may be so called based on our modern definition of lovers, are not practicing lovers in the real sense. They led a life of abstinence, driven by their love for each other. I have not finished the story, so I would not know how this story would unfold eventually. Or perhaps its my unwillingness to know how this tragically romantic love story would end that kept it waiting. Sometimes life is one big mystery. Everyday can be lived with hope or with despair. We can see ourselves closer to reaching nirvana (if death can be treated as such) or closer to another life (if we believe in reincarnation) or simply closer to the end of our journey (if you want an ending to everything).
I would probably not choose the latter. Moral judgements aside, I'd rather live a life of love and uncertainty, to be overwhelmed each day with overflowing love and insatiable desire to feel love and give love. There is always something poignant about forbidden love, made more bittersweet by the purity of it. 
