It has taken several days to get wired so I am just now getting started on my travel imaginings. I tried embedding photos into nice two-column magazine text format. They looked beautiful but I would have drawn curses from all over the planet if I sent large attachments, thus I am sending plain text only for now. I am writing this from a small café latte in the Waterloo Station in London.
One does not have to go a great distance to find grand beauty. In a world that is struggling with growing unrest and discord, beauty is often lost to those who stay glued to the visceral images of CNN. So many have told me they are exhausted watching these images. Mold-green tinted night vision images of war zones don’t constitute beauty. I am compelled to ask people why they do optional things that only bring inner turmoil and exhaustion. I have not yet gotten a reasonable answer. I suggest the power off button and get a quizzical look.
As I was packing to make this journey across the sea on Thursday, I found time in the morning to photograph the pure white irises that had erupted into full bloom in the front yard during the night a mere six feet from the house. I found myself lamenting that these vast delicate blooms would be long gone in six weeks. Curiously, these have never previously bloomed. They obviously liked being dug up and moved last year. I also found the pansies growing up around the statue of St. Francis in the early morning light to be worthy of putting onto a disk and preserved.
I left Anderson about 9:30 AM and arrived in Atlanta via 17-year old Toyota without a problem and even saw gas for little of nothing by current standards. The car barely used 3 gallons to make the 140-mile journey. Any bids for it? I left my car at a pleasing little Episcopal Church south of Atlanta, close by the airport and even got a spot in the shade for it. A member there took me to the airport and left me to find my way to the other side of the planet.
Atlanta being what it is, it proved easy to have a magnificent Thai meal before going to the airport. A cashew shrimp dish with rice made for a fine cosmopolitan culinary farewell, although I have to confess to being well fed by a card carrying 100% Italian for some months now, so it was not quite the radical departure from my normal eating habits one would expect. I am not found at McDonalds or Burger King drive throughs. Anyway, I arrived at the airport early and fatted.
In the Atlanta airport the High Museum of Art has set up a satellite series of top rate art exhibits. There is a magnificent collection of stone sculpture from Zimbabwe that is fabulous. The cold stone seems almost warm and organic. It is mostly of mothers with infants, larger than life size. Some of the blown studio glasswork is spectacular. Again, beauty was to be found close at hand. There is also a green thumb lurking in the place as the international terminal has a fine collection of full size tropical trees and plants under glass atriums. One does not normally think of airports as museums and art galleries. As one would expect in this precarious day and age, security was impressive but the people were polite and efficient and the process did not detract from my three hour experience in the airport of wandering around viewing fine art, getting in a five mile walk, and wandering onto the plane very unhurried.
The 777 launched into the sunset and then circled around to do a semi-great circle route that took us across vermillion Eastern seaboard skies then into the indigo skies over the Canadian maritime provinces. About the time the sky went from vermillion to indigo a fine meal was presented along with two bottles of wine. I was in good shape. Even with the now necessary plastic utensils, the presentation was fine and the two Scottish women next to me were happy to feed me their extra things. Beauty of an auditory nature is certainly to be found in the entrancing accents of northern Scotland. Tell me to do anything with one of those accents and I am on it. These two women were grand and pleased I had been in their town of Inverness, even knowing my castle haunts there. The music system allowed me to listen to Samuel Barbers “Adagio for Strings” and Ralph Vaughn Williams “Lark Ascending” all night as I drifted in and out of cat naps. I had the best seat with a front row aisle position, which meant no bulkhead or seat in front of me. On a plane, space is a very beautiful thing. The china blue edge of morning light transformed into platinum and then orange as we had breakfast and made the nearly eight mile drop onto the runways of London’s Gatwick.
In this day and age, it takes a bit of extra effort to find beauty, but it is to be readily found all about us. It can be found as close as the smile of a nearby child. It doesn’t take the technology of jet turbines to gain access to it. Turn off CNN and go out singing that old classic “What a Beautiful World.” There is a lot to live for wherever you are. I just have the good fortune to be ‘wherever’ a long ways off at present. Perhaps one day everyone in this world can seek beauty. It might be just six feet outside your door.
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