Traveling Abroad

This blog post is my back-up journal to replace the hand-written one I had planned to write in one of those blank books people give you for presents sometimes.  I brought one along.  The marker ribbon was still folded up as neatly as it had been the day I had first opened it.  Every page was perfectly ready and that was the problem.  I don't like to mess things up.  Evidently that kind of character trait travels well inside of me.  I didn't attempt to write at all until our second full day in Scotland and then I only wrote three lines and immediately scratched them out.  I started again the next afternoon, reasoning that since my less-than-perfect beginning was behind me, I would be free from my own expectations.  Then I couldn't decide whether to record where we went and describe the sights or to try to explain their impact on us.  The place was profound.  It came with a rush of connections to a deep DNA past John and I had never personalized before, one we were at a loss to explain, even to one another.   

We had free time late that second afternoon and hoped to walk through Grayfriars Kirk in the Old Town of Edinburgh, but it had closed for the day by the time we got there, so we rambled along the gravel path through the cemetery, each of us pausing at one spot or another and then waiting so we could move on together.  We were quiet.  It was a quiet place.  John noticed some chubby, waddling doves peaking at us from under a bush and took a picture of them with his phone, but they didn't show up well.  He guessed we'd just have to remember them.  One especially prominent headstone had been built stone-upon-stone, carved with cornices and ornate swirls.  Like the others here, it was formal and composed.  Few of these sites had flowers, although planted garden circles did soften the overall landscape.  But here, on this old sober stone, where grief was no longer fresh, lay two twigs, five small stones, and a tiny wild-daisy blossom.  Selected recently and left by whom?  And why?  I don't know.  Yet, here I was, standing for a moment in a green space, in Edinburgh, Scotland, on ground where people had been standing since 1598, according to one sign, and thinking about some other living being who knew something I didn't know.  

I write this now because if it were possible to absorb that blend of very old and present moment, to realize that we exist with unknown others who leave puzzling and yet relevant things in plain view, unconcerned that they will be understood or even known, that would be a way to take in this trip.  I've traveled across the US many times since I was a child and discovered land-marks to my delight, but I've never felt the preponderance of the history in breath and rock like this before.  Even in my old age, I'm new at this.  And I marvel.  

So, that's my introduction.  I know, maybe too steep and a lot of steps, but I'm moseying around here for a while.