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Letter From The Highlands -
October 2003
By Anne Perry
I’m just home
from over seven weeks travelling around America and Canada, back
home for a couple of days, and then to London again overnight, and
now at last home, so far as I know, until well into the New Year,
perhaps February or March. I had a wonderful time, working hard,
of course. But that is why I went.
I travelled from
the east coast of the United States to the west, then back again,
then west again, then finally from Vancouver to Chicago to Miami and
home. I experienced freezing to 108 degrees, desert to torrential
rain, and sea level to nearly 9,000 feet. And all of it was good.
However it will be wonderful to get back into the same bed I got up
from, to launder my clothes in the washing machine and feel they are
really clean – as opposed to a hotel hand basin, and to get back to
writing the next story.
The most powerful
lesson of travelling for me is that people everywhere are generous,
almost all are honest (I know not all, but I have never met with dishonesty
while travelling) and they have more desire to do good than harm.
Architecture, climate, food and other customs may vary, but goodwill
does not.
Of course I missed
my immediate friends and family, but telephones are marvellous, and
on the whole I was far too busy to think of anything much beyond the
most urgent issues: Where am I? Should I be here? What time is
it here? Do I have everything that belongs to me? And then the subsidiary
questions: Am I on the right plane? Will my luggage get to the same
place that I do? (Usually – but not always) And am I talking complete
nonsense?
Nothing disastrous
happened. I was always on the right plane, my luggage always turned
up, eventually, and if I was talking nonsense everyone was too kind
to say so!
One wonderful
experience I had was a short break between the end of my American
tour, and the book fair in Minneapolis. I went with a friend for
two days past the Grand Tetons to Yellowstone Park. There surely
cannot be more spectacular scenery anywhere. The sheer beauty of
Yellowstone defies description, from the overwhelming size of the
mountains, down to the miniature, exquisite beauty of brilliantly
coloured algae coating smooth stones under a thin film of hot water
from the thermal springs. It looked like hammered gold leaf, such
as one sees on a Byzantine icon, set with green and yellow and turquoise
enamel and gems. But it was all warm water algae, works of nature
– by the acre!
We saw buffalo
from only a few yards away, then elk, even a bull elk with a magnificent
rack of antlers, standing alone in the forest, away from his females.
He lifted his head and bugled – a magical sound in the stillness of
the sunlight and the trees.
The mountains
seem so eternal, and yet the environment is fragile, and we have already
ruined so much of it! How many of us remember that we were given
the stewardship of the earth, NOT the ownership of it. We will be
called to render an accounting one day! How many birds and beasts,
fish, trees and flowers are going to rise up in judgement against
us? How can we be trusted with worlds in eternity if we can’t or
won’t care for the small patch of this one that we have now? Sometimes
I fear we have forgotten the purpose of it all. Life is to learn,
to nurture, to grow in the spirit so that we love all that has been
made by the hand of God.
Now I am ready
to start the next story, and feel raring to go after eight weeks at
least only talking about writing rather than doing it. Not that the
talking wasn’t terrific, and in the long run will be highly productive.
It is extraordinarily important to meet lots of different people,
with all manner of ideas and beliefs.
Dimensions
of Truth
Sometimes one
hears a train of thought, a totally new concept or understanding of
something, and the natural reaction is to reject it because it crosses
the ideas one already has. But sometimes a little more consideration
can show that it is only the other side of a truth which has far more
size, other dimensions that we did not perceive before. It is sometimes
not a contradiction to one’s beliefs, but an extension of them. We
know the story of the blind men describing an elephant – one touched
its trunk, another its tail, a third its side, a fourth its ear, a
fifth its tusk, a sixth its lip. Six UTTERLY different descriptions
but all true. They had never seen an elephant. Are we too often
blind, and unwilling to listen to a larger, more complete description?
I met so many
interesting people throughout my seven weeks. It is most educational
to listen to completely opposing points of view, religious, political
or anything else, and realize that both people believe what they are
saying, completely honestly. I would hate to be a juror, and I am
so glad there is very little indeed I have to judge – only what I
myself should do, what I see as the truth of something, how I can
be better, wiser, above all kinder.
Kindness is the
heart of it. I fear at times we get so caught up with the easily
measurable rules: what to wear, what to pay, what time to practice
which observance, that we lose sight of the fact that kindness, or
charity if you prefer, is the heart of it. And without the heart
beating, the rest of it is dead.
I have spent seven
weeks dependent upon the kindness of strangers, the honesty of people
I don’t know – and never have I been let down! I cannot be worthy
of that, unless I treat strangers, ALL strangers, in the same way.
And I can be grateful – and believe me, I am.
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