| by: | Linda |
| date: | 11 Oct — 08 Nov 2009 |
| preliminary remark: | This is a composite of my unfinished, unsent, messages to several hosts I met on the road. |
Dear C & BD & JM,
Thank you for offering me warm shower, hot meal, and a safe shelter from the cold and early October snow when I need a rest from travel; for letting a philosophical mind intrude into your lovely house for several nights with all her childlike, and at times tiresome, questions about human nature; for sharing thoughts, living experience and travelling excitement with a formerly isolated person, so accustomed to confine herself in a metaphysical cloister where she used to sit in silent contemplation of the nature of (mathematical) reality; and for encouraging with your words of wisdom a coward fearing life and social encounter to embark on her own quest of value to her existence in her unusual way.
Strange it is that after years of ‘monastic retreat’ in my mathematical convent, I should become a wanderer in the world without expected stopping. Never have I thought one day I would be involved in the messy complications of the outside world, let alone enjoying myself in the ‘snug foothills of warm humanity’—never have I enjoyed myself so much, to tell you the truth. Now that after ten thousand perils to the West, I have come to touch the happy Isle and see the great Achilles whom we know, a poem I often recited during my solo riding springs to my mind:
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world…
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’
‘Ulysses’ by Alfred Tennyson
I know not what impact I have left on your mind, nor shall I attempt at predicting the unpredictable, but I like to let you know that I fully treasure the opportunity that is bestowed upon me to make your acquaintance and to hear your and others’ stories. In the midst of this repose and the many challenges to face so runs my dream, but what I am? A pilgrim to the rawness of Canadian nature, a godless mathematician who trusts that good shall fall, and a part of all that I have met.
May you also find that for which you seek at the end of your journey.
Linda
p.s. What I was crying for is that my miserable upbringing has enjoined me from savouring the touch of warm humanity for so long.
LINDA’S ARTWORLD 