The Beautiful Stranger

 

(Passion for Pipes) There are some pipes the impact of which I feel so much that they are imprinted indelibly in my memory, I want them so much. Worse, they are the persistent ghost–the unbidden visitor who strides into any moment, however inconvenient or distracting a presence they may be.
And when the owner refuses to part company with the pipe? Does this settle the matter? No. If, anything it’s worse, akin to the beautiful stranger who, once seen, cannot be unseen nor forgotten. The indelibility of these memories astonish me. When there is so much I struggle to remember, these things I cannot forget. There is more than a little truth to Buddha’s admonition that the root of all suffering is desire. Such was my experience of the sandblasted bent bamboo apple depicted above. Continued