It isn’t just the cozy quality and small size that I love about cabins; it’s everything intangible a cabin represents, too — the connection to nature, the sense of solitude, and the greater simplicity’s of one’s daily rhythms.
Here on the edge of a country, you have only a crystalline sea and the sky above you. You must trust those other lands are there; that the only land is not just the one behind you. You must trust it is also a beginning.
I found that my brief encounter with Leena had been its own source of quiet energy for me. Her questions and kind smile remained me for a long time, imbuing each stroke of my paintbrush with a renewed sense of peace and purpose.
Geraldine reminded me of a valuable truth that afternoon: that no matter what the crazy retailers want us to believe, Christmas isn’t about what we’re going to get or give. It’s about celebrating what we already have.
The hills were equally arresting. I couldn’t stop staring at them, shielding my eyes from the sun as I tried to burn their image to my memory forever. When I think about it now, they offered me a bit of their clarity on a day when I felt anything but.
Whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving today or not, I hope you find a bit of time to say your own prayer of gratitude. For life’s many crazy blessings, for new cities to explore, for the gift of home, and of course, for pumpkin pie.
Travel is always doing this to you, isn’t it? Sending you off in search of one thing – the máta, for instance – only to give you something altogether different to discover. And for this, you will leave Hortobágy grateful.
It has been a summer of discovering new landscapes – the ethereal Shi Shi Beach of Olympic National Park, the desert canyons of Yakima River Valley in central Washington, and now I can add Desolation Wilderness to that list, too.
She soon leaves us as we sketch the Bay Bridge, but Suzanne’s words remain with me throughout the rest of the day. Whether I’ve been in a place for thirty seconds or thirty years, I never want to stop sketching – and more importantly, stop seeing.
I take their sketch with me when I leave – as a token of gratitude that something as simple as a sketch could open the door to our encounter. Here in Southeast Asia, as on every journey, it is the people who have made each place.