“There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot.”
- Wendell Berry, Remembering -
Yet another flight... I'm just back from the concrete jungle of Hong Kong to the lush greenery of Singapore; my new hometown feels like a pretty country town in comparison.
With family and friends on several continents, I'll probably never be able to travel on foot only. So why am I writing about this? I'm not sure; the quote just came to my mind while sitting on the plane back home. I was thinking of Wendell's longing of not travelling anywhere but where you can go on foot; of being content with one's life as it is, and not always craving for more of everything - experiences, things, happiness. Or maybe he didn't even mean that? I don't know; I never read the whole book.
In my tangled thoughts, I felt him also talking about being closer to the ground and to the soil. Which is not what I do for the moment, living as I am in a high rise some 60 meters above the ground. Garden girl as I am, I need soil under my fingernails, and I need a garden to mirror continuous ebbs and flows of life. Needing an elevator to get to the ground is not for girls like me; I feel as misplaced as my potted plants, that quickly wilt away in the unrelenting sun without showers from my watering cans. Never to travel again except on foot would be unrealistic, but I should be able to get closer to the soil again. I just need to take one step at a time.
1 comment:
Ei kai se "komennus" siellä kestä ikuisesti joten seuraavan paikan otatte sieltä missä saat maata jalkojesi alle ja sormiesi väliin. Sun pitää saada "punainen tupa ja perunamaa".
Itse kun tuossa viime vuoden lopulla piti miettiä näitä asumismuotoja kun ei vielä tiennyt pystynkö pitämään kotini mietin pystyisinkö asumaan kerrostalossa ja totesin että luultavasti ahdistuisin. Vaikka on pieni rivaripiha se on kutenkin piha jossa saan kuokkia ja olla koska vaan miten vaan, se on vapautta.
Pikkukuvasta näytti että kuva on piikkilangasta mutta se onkin luonnon piikkilanka. Hyvä symbolinen kuva tunteillesi tästä asiasta:)
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