nengyu (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nengyu) wrote,@ 2007-08-16 00:08:00 |
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a letter from ali, the very only
hello friends of far and near.
it was a week ago now that four dishevelled shapes came off the inverness train, tired but aglow, from a pilgrimage-like journey by open canoe from fort william to inverness. i leapt south almost immediately for more vso training, into a different pattern of days. today i am meant to be packing away all of my things for parentmobile thats in edinburgh to take south. but this morning neng sent some photos, and they tickled me into writing some things for those who sponsored me in money terms. i wanted to share them with you, and also to let those in edinburgh know ill be here again from the 17th to the 26th-ish of this month, and want to go camping somewhere easy-to-get to, maybe cammo by crammond, with as many of you as possible and your musical yum-food-making inspiring-chat-causing comfortableness on the weekend of 24th-26th. i hope you can come or/and that nice times can be had together in the week before.
we returned, anya, neng, kato and me, cheeks burning from sunburn and chuffed pride, from the Famous Cross-Scotland Canoe Mission. anya claimed the muscle that had grown in her arm had curled around her neck and would soon be talking. neng's back may take some weeks of gentle recovery. kato's strong hugs have got evidently stronger, and she could now pick up several adults at once and swing them like cats.
me, i somehow didnt really have signs of the journey marked on me, not bigger muscles or new ones, only one little blister and a distinct hard-work smell that was comfy and nice in the constant fresh air and undesirable only on entering the city. washing always feels sad at the end of a trip that is loved. i dont want to wash it away. i want it close on my skin, at the surface.
neng once wrote me: 'travel for the reason of love, and love is the start point of many other experiments of life.'
this journey began less of love than of a wayward sort of halfimagined dream of mine, years ago, to paddle and stop, and paddle and stop, and get tired from physical activity, see the world from water, and do this with friends.
it came to fruit with unexpected haste from my commitment to do it raising money for vso, anya's restless feeling and the readiness of kato and neng to reach and grab a moving opportunity.
we realised quickly, from the advices of past-paddle pals, that it was not going to be a holiday in the expected sense of easy riding. we decided we were likely to show ugly monsters of frustration discomfort and fatigue. we agreed an elaborate silly arm gesture to indicate said state. we braced ourselves.
and it was a kind of immediate transformation. love came by the doing. we felt it from the begining. pushing away rockingly from the dock at banavie, i was ignited by a kind of disbelieving glee that we were actually doing it. much of our laughter was just about this, finding ourselves in a kind of unexpected story book, strawberry or mango-fresh, a kind of hyper-place and spiral-open-time that we experienced, bright and new and tasted all through our senses, and which we made ourselves.
"god im SO JEALOUS OF MYSELF FOR BEING HERE!!"
the skin and veins of high waves on loch ness, the sound of paddles in the stillness of canals. genteel british canal culture with its mown lawns, lock-side banter and leisurely tortoises (people and cuddle-loving reptiles). encounters with strangers who provided bounteously and memorably, from wolverhampton motorbikers who gave us a giant breakfast to wee petey the toothless skipper who advised us about marriage and happiness and gave us waterbound shelter for our night at inverness in a 1937 built fifer fishing boat.
nights varied from canal-sides under bunting twee-brilliantness to jagged ness-side rocks, and we broke into urquart castle via loch ness at night and cooked a fine dinner and camped, like waterbound visitors before us, just beyond the view of its portcullis. weather varied across a rainbow spectrum of wind, wetness and colour. stowaways included ticks, slugs, a strange little fourlegged worm-beast and even a mouse.
some randomly ordered photos of the trip are on http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z
embodied sensual beings!! embrace your conditions!!! steer paddle float and be aware of the wind and the flow.
enjoy the journey
xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
hello friends of far and near.
it was a week ago now that four dishevelled shapes came off the inverness train, tired but aglow, from a pilgrimage-like journey by open canoe from fort william to inverness. i leapt south almost immediately for more vso training, into a different pattern of days. today i am meant to be packing away all of my things for parentmobile thats in edinburgh to take south. but this morning neng sent some photos, and they tickled me into writing some things for those who sponsored me in money terms. i wanted to share them with you, and also to let those in edinburgh know ill be here again from the 17th to the 26th-ish of this month, and want to go camping somewhere easy-to-get to, maybe cammo by crammond, with as many of you as possible and your musical yum-food-making inspiring-chat-causing comfortableness on the weekend of 24th-26th. i hope you can come or/and that nice times can be had together in the week before.
we returned, anya, neng, kato and me, cheeks burning from sunburn and chuffed pride, from the Famous Cross-Scotland Canoe Mission. anya claimed the muscle that had grown in her arm had curled around her neck and would soon be talking. neng's back may take some weeks of gentle recovery. kato's strong hugs have got evidently stronger, and she could now pick up several adults at once and swing them like cats.
me, i somehow didnt really have signs of the journey marked on me, not bigger muscles or new ones, only one little blister and a distinct hard-work smell that was comfy and nice in the constant fresh air and undesirable only on entering the city. washing always feels sad at the end of a trip that is loved. i dont want to wash it away. i want it close on my skin, at the surface.
neng once wrote me: 'travel for the reason of love, and love is the start point of many other experiments of life.'
this journey began less of love than of a wayward sort of halfimagined dream of mine, years ago, to paddle and stop, and paddle and stop, and get tired from physical activity, see the world from water, and do this with friends.
it came to fruit with unexpected haste from my commitment to do it raising money for vso, anya's restless feeling and the readiness of kato and neng to reach and grab a moving opportunity.
we realised quickly, from the advices of past-paddle pals, that it was not going to be a holiday in the expected sense of easy riding. we decided we were likely to show ugly monsters of frustration discomfort and fatigue. we agreed an elaborate silly arm gesture to indicate said state. we braced ourselves.
and it was a kind of immediate transformation. love came by the doing. we felt it from the begining. pushing away rockingly from the dock at banavie, i was ignited by a kind of disbelieving glee that we were actually doing it. much of our laughter was just about this, finding ourselves in a kind of unexpected story book, strawberry or mango-fresh, a kind of hyper-place and spiral-open-time that we experienced, bright and new and tasted all through our senses, and which we made ourselves.
"god im SO JEALOUS OF MYSELF FOR BEING HERE!!"
the skin and veins of high waves on loch ness, the sound of paddles in the stillness of canals. genteel british canal culture with its mown lawns, lock-side banter and leisurely tortoises (people and cuddle-loving reptiles). encounters with strangers who provided bounteously and memorably, from wolverhampton motorbikers who gave us a giant breakfast to wee petey the toothless skipper who advised us about marriage and happiness and gave us waterbound shelter for our night at inverness in a 1937 built fifer fishing boat.
nights varied from canal-sides under bunting twee-brilliantness to jagged ness-side rocks, and we broke into urquart castle via loch ness at night and cooked a fine dinner and camped, like waterbound visitors before us, just beyond the view of its portcullis. weather varied across a rainbow spectrum of wind, wetness and colour. stowaways included ticks, slugs, a strange little fourlegged worm-beast and even a mouse.
some randomly ordered photos of the trip are on http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z
embodied sensual beings!! embrace your conditions!!! steer paddle float and be aware of the wind and the flow.
enjoy the journey
xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
