In Chapter One of Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises, Bill asks Mike, "How did you go bankrupt?"
Mike replies, "Gradually and then suddenly."
"What brought it on?"
"Friends," said Mike. "I had a lot of friends. False friends. Then
I had creditors, too. Probably had more creditors than anybody
in England."
"Tell them about in the court," Brett said.
"I don't remember," Mike said. "I was just a little tight."
"Tight!" Brett exclaimed. "You were blind!"
Yesterday, I had a long conversation with n.a.k. about the person I had seen last year, and how the location we were visiting reminds me of him, because he comes from there. N.a.k. had asked me, "When did you realize that things weren't working out?" After that, I explained nearly every step that brought me to the ultimate conclusion that the relationship wasn't ever going to work. I could have simply said to n.a.k., "Gradually and then suddenly I realized that he wasn't who he seemed to be," but I wanted to see from a Saudi perspective where I was too optimistic or stupid or not understanding. In his own quiet, grandfatherly way, n.a.k., shared with me what Brett exclaims in Chapter One: 'You were blind!'
Indeed, I was blind. In trying to prove that my mind and heart and eyes were open, I blinded myself to reality, to truth, to human behavior, to anything God was poking me in the ribs with to let me know, "He isn't my plan for you." 'Gradually,' God nudged my elbow, 'and suddenly' -- he whacked me in the back and sternly said, "Listen!"
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