But many times a person can go on a vacation--and return and think--now THERE is a place I could settle down--when I retire, when the kids are grown, when the cows come home.
Dear One and I know a few people who have travelled places and returned--pulled up stakes and moved away. I am sure it works for some. This is something I can't imagine doing. I always felt that the specialness of a vacation is that is IS temporary--you DON'T live there. Vacation is a snapshot (literally) in your life--not the reality of your life.
We love to travel and have been very blessed to have had vacations in places that have touched our hearts. We usually bring home a suitcase of reminders--maybe a local product-or foodstuff-or special book--and most likely a vintage something that we found on a "poke around the vintage shops kind of day" that we like. I might even come home with visions of repainting the kitchen that JUST PERFECT shade of sky or sunset or stone or flora or shutter that I saw on a vintage home.
I have always been haunted by a quote from Blaise Paschal (b. 1623)
“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?
This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself”
[This is from page 75 of Blaise Pascal’s Pensees (New York; Penguin Books, 1966).]
Beth, Pascal must have searched deeply and questioned everything to write what I think is the ultimate truth. If it isn't the truth (the essence of faith, right?) we are lost. Shep hoped his person would come but, I guessing, he never did. I would love to think he came to collect him at the end. Or, better yet, that there was no end, but a beginning. Spring always comes after a dark winter, so I like to think that is an indication that our tiny lives mirror nature. We are part of nature, so why not? You look so cozy in your coat that looks like wool. Love the name Palace Bar. There is a place in Fox Lake, IL, named the Lagoon Lounge. There are rooms for rent above the bar. It is right out of a detective story. I went inside once to see what it was like. It was dark. Usually, when a person loves to read, they can write, so if you have any aspirations in that department...someone needs to use the Lagoon Lounge for a backdrop.
ReplyDelete~Ginene