The lamp in the spine

Yesterday I returned from a whirlwind out-of-town trip for a dinner with my friend R. and our mutual friend W., a reunion of sorts: it was the first time in nearly a decade that we’d all seen each other at once. There was much catching-up and exclamations of "You look exactly the same!" and "I can’t believe we’re all sitting at the same table again!" The dinner was fantastic, too (ceviche with squid is my new favorite thing ever). Incorrigible English major that I am, I thought of what Virginia Woolf called "the lamp in the spine" in A Room of One’s Own: "and thus by degrees was lit, halfway down the spine, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow." I thought of it because back in our student days, one of our favorite eateries had a line from the same chapter — "One cannot think
well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well" — painted on the wall. Did they remember, I asked. They did.

At the end of the evening W. said she thought we had all ended up happier than we used to be, and I was a little startled to realize she was right. This is a sad time of year for me; it was just over a year ago that I lost my father, and I have a feeling that early May is never going to be the same. And yet, and yet. To sit across from people you’ve known for years, laughing over the simple fact of being there together, lighting the lamp in the spine with good food and better company, is a reminder that some things continue — that, whatever happens, there will be more moments like this. Before we dispersed, we promised each other that we’d all come back and do the same thing again. And that, in itself, is enough to keep the lamp lit.

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