A Travelogue to celebrate the publication of my new book, and the launch of
The Travelling Book Society! See below for details.
There is nothing to set
my writer’s genes all a-quiver like a little travel. Not that I write much
while travelling, I am generally too distracted and on sensory overload to put
two words together sensibly. But I will jot down a few notes in my trusty
leather journal with my favourite pen and I cannot help but wax poetic in my
head as I trot up and down ancient cobbled streets, ride a bike along the sea,
climb the Eiffel Tower on a night glistening with the rain of hours past and
the promise of more to come.
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| Beech woods in Denmark. |
Every
summer I pack my bags for a trip to my country of birth to see family and
friends. I leave the incessant heat of Texas behind for the cool, balmy green
of Danish forests and the bracing sea air full of the tantalizing scents of
salt and seaweed. For years, that was as far as I went, but as I…matured, shall
we say…I realized I was missing the opportunity to explore further. And one
should never miss an opportunity to explore further, as someone once said.
(That someone might have been me and I just said it.)
Apart
from the new experiences and impressions that abound, travelling lends space
and perspective to the everyday life, and as busy as that gets, Lord knows
perspective is a welcome thing. For several years now I’ve been slaving over my
new book, Each Wind That Blows, writing and re-writing, surfing the waves of
blissful inspiration only to wallow in the shallows of writer’s burn out,
completely lost in the forest and shrubbery of my many, many words trying to
describe a few simple things. I’m down to the final edits and it’s so close to
done I can taste it. So near and yet so far. (Editors Note: it's done and available on Amazon. Yay!!)
A
little travel is just the thing. To be blessed with the opportunity to, thanks
to conveniently placed friends and family, travel in Europe, even better.
Because Each Wind That Blows takes place in Kenya, and when I need a break from
reliving that story, Europe is just the thing. It’s not just the landscape and
the people that are different and afford me a clean break from Kenya. It’s the
‘vibe’.
Kenya
grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. All of Africa does. And if it
doesn’t, then…well, I don’t know what you are made of. Sterner stuff than me. I
am helpless before Africa’s allure. The vibe of Africa is a deep growl rumbling
in her cavernous furnaces miles underground, a passionate and primeval chant throbbing
in the ochre earth that sucks you in and spits you out, all burned up, twisted
around, and begging for more. Africa asks you questions to which you will have
no answers but to which your bones will respond with an intense sense of
longing, as if once you knew the answers and lived their meaning, as if those
most ancient of peoples from whom we all descend, our global ancestors, live in
those bones and are speaking to you. You yearn and hunger to meet that truth
again. You go a little mad for a little while.
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| Beach in Denmark |
Then, if you’re a
writer, you start to write. You start with the little questions and follow them
where they lead, into ever bigger and often, more painful, questions. Then you
get lost and, if you’re lucky, take a trip to Europe to clear your head.
Enter
the cool, spacious vibe of the age-old country of Denmark, a tiny country with
a huge history. The beech and oak forests reaching for a blustering sky, bright
blue with scuttling clouds of white and sudden iron, thunder threatening on an
otherwise sunny day destined for the beach, the trees remaining calm and
unflustered. I love these trees with a deep and abiding passion, trees whose own
ancestors once covered this cluster of peninsula and islands since before the
days of the Vikings. Beech and oak to calm me, silver birch and weeping willows
to wake the poet in my soul. The sunwarmed scent of pine and fir mingling with
the peculiarly clean smell of sand and sea to tease my senses. The rippling sea
to hypnotize and remind me, all is not what it seems and much is hidden from my
curious eyes. Patience, Grasshopper, patience.
Here
a crumbling ruin, the mysterious remains of a fortress built by Vikings. Here a
small patch of cobblestones alongside a forest trail, revealed to remind us of
times gone by, ye olde road to the big city. Castles and churches with
centuries to their name, quaint old houses with thatched roofs and leaning
doorways, their brightly painted walls billowing and bulging under the weight
of their hundreds of years and the many, many stories they could tell.
The
vibe of the earth of Denmark is cool and calm, knowing and wise, dispassionate,
but ever so present, waiting, watching. I reach for her and I am instantly
calmed, confidence in the unknown and my ability to face it, enhanced.
Sometimes, I think I spot a Viking or two from the corner of my eye. They’ve
got my back, these, my long gone, ever present, ancestors.
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| Versailles |
Thus
restored, they wave me off to Paris, a city content and intent upon itself.
Broad, imposing boulevards declaring still the ambitions of a genius general gone
mad emperor. Narrow twisting streets whispering of a medieval past, mansions
and castles and churches and monuments and palaces and gargoyles and statues
and museums and parks and gardens and avenues lined with massive trees, all
declaring their undying passion for and alliance to, the grandeur of the days
gone by, to a country that spawned the first notions of liberty, equality,
fraternity. It’s raining all the time but nobody cares. We are in Paris, after
all, and the weather does not get to be a character of note when you are faced
with the overwhelming character of Paris herself.
Little shops and cosy
bistros, fancy dames and lads galore, the houses of Chanel, Yves St. Laurent,
Dior. Marais, Montmartre, the Latin Quarter, the Tuileries. Notre Dame, Louvre,
Sacre Coeur, Le Arc de Triomphe. The calm expanse of the Seine slicing through
it all, a vein of serenity amongst the hectic flesh of a city that first drew
breath in Roman times. It’s overwhelming, enchanting to the point of mind
numbing. The view from the Eiffel Tower, caught after catching my breath after
climbing the 669 steps to the second platform (elevator be damned, I’m working
off another French delicacy) laying it all out in sudden clarity, the height
lending perspective and order to what feels like a massive jumble on the ground
and on my little folding map, already fraying at the seams. A city of lights
spreading out before me in the glittering aftermath of all the rain, her
history as much a part of her beauty as all the sights. Age before beauty. Perspective
is everything.
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| Arc de Triomphe by night. |
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| The author in London, photo by Sue Child. |
A
little breathing room on a fast train dipping into darkness under the sea and I
have barely caught up to myself before I reach London, all edgy and trembling
with life. The East End, restored after decades recovering from the devastating
bombings during World War II, bustling with fresh energy, flower markets and
artisans, foods from around the world and the accompanying people in all manner
of dress. A sunny day on and alongside the massive River Thames, feeling
diminutive as I pass by the imposing Tower of London, under ponderous bridges
and by the House of Parliament with all its spires and ornate detailing. These
old cities remind me they just don’t build like that anymore, and more’s the
pity.
The massive river is alive
with boats, ferries and speedboats tearing up the calm waters, and this nature
chick is about bursting at the seams after ten days in two of the most vibrant
cities in the world, the impressions and experiences all blooming into one
giant, milling chaos that leaves no handhold for Kenya’s grip, never mind time
to worry about a book. Who the hell cares. What book?
It’s
just what the doctor ordered and so is the eight hour journey to Dublin aboard
the train and ferry. Quiet and serene, the train bumbles up the north coast of
England and Wales with blessed few stops, the scenery going from pastoral and
kindly like a farmer’s wife’s cheeks to wild and ragged, the sea and mountains
of North Wales vying for attention in an everlasting clash of the titans.
A few stops along a man
sits down across from me, the table between us soon host to his laptop from
which he reads aloud under his breath, sounding out the words. I look up from
my book and startle to see a kindly Asian face smiling back. Fu Manchu beard, long
blue-black pony tail, a beautiful red silk mandarin jacket with one stubborn
loop that refuses to stay put around its corresponding button. His unlined face
is open and friendly like that of a child, his questions likewise. His heavy
accent is a little tricky to understand, but I soon gather he is from Nepal, a
teacher of yoga and Buddhism, here to teach a summer course at a northern
English University. He has opened centers for the teaching of yoga and Buddhism
in major cities around the world. At least, that is what I think I gather.
I find myself on a train
through the English countryside on my way to Ireland, discussing reincarnation,
the Chinese invasion of Nepal and the finer points of religion versus faith.
When he gets up to leave a few hours later, a stop or two before Holyhead, I am
startled again when the rest of his outfit is revealed. Under his fine red silk
jacket and above handsome slippers he is wearing khaki shorts revealing yoga
chiselled calves. That’s travelling for you, in a nutshell. You just never know
what you’ll find around the next corner and it’s often not what you’d expect.
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| The author enjoying the sunshine and sea breeze. |
The fine ferry Ulysses
leaves Holyhead for Dublin on a bright and sunny afternoon, the sea a placid, glistening
mirror to the empty sky above. I am relieved, for sadly my ancestry has not
afforded me the seafaring belly of a Viking. The wind is fresh and cool, but
wrapped in my jacket and scarf I sit on the dark green deck in perfect
happiness for the better part of three hours, soaking up the sun and the vast
horizon, feeling the limitlessness of the open sea, the endless possibilities
of a life lived boldly. Anything could happen. I might even write a deeply
personal book. A book about Africa and a childhood there that left me with more
questions than answers, a loss that left me reeling, a life coming apart and a
return to Kenya after thirty years that started as a lark on horseback and
ended up changing my life. Yes, it could happen. I might even finish it. If I
ever leave Ireland, that is.
Lord, I love Ireland.
She looms out of the mist and it is little wonder she inspires such myths and
legends. The Emerald Isle indeed, she glows like a fine gem in the soft gleam
of the setting sun as the ferry draws closer. I face into the wind, breathing
deeply, all the way down to my toes. Seagulls circle way below the deck line,
gleaming white and impossibly graceful. I am so ready for this. It is my second
visit and I have been as eager to return here as I was to return to Kenya,
which is saying a lot.
They are nothing alike
and yet they have much in common. A penchant for strange, mysterious histories
and a wild, thrilling edge to their wilderness that calls to me on a soul-deep level
I cannot define, that makes me want to toss it all away and set off into the
unknown with just a walking stick (or better yet, a horse AND a walking stick).
Ireland’s great hills and deep lakes, sweeping shores and craggy cliffs, her
air of mystery and deeply buried secrets echo softly in the parts of me I don’t
know or understand, much like Kenya. It’s irresistible. It’s a different kind
of call than Kenya, more magic than primeval, more mythical than ancestral, but
it’s a call all the same, and the same parts of me answer.
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| Killorglin, Ireland |
I am blessed with fine
weather but even if it had rained every day of my sojourn there, I would barely
have cared. The rugged Ring of Kerry and that of Dingle, the rolling beauty of
Cork and the strange, distant view of the windswept Blasket Islands, (inhabited
until the 1950’s), rousing, heart wrenching music at the local pub as some
twenty local musicians came and went, all added up to one splendid thing –
total escape, utter replenishment of the soul.
On my last day in Killorglin, we go out on the
lake in a small boat, the water glassy and black as polished obsidian. The
little boat leaves smooth, serene ripples that turn to mercury in our wake, and
takes us to visit waterfalls and crumbling old towers, monasteries and age old universities
on deserted islands and the far shores of the lake. The clouds hang low over
the deep green hilltops, a smattering of rain comes and goes leaving us moving
through a fine mist that feels friendly and welcoming on my cheeks. I can
breathe deeply and fully, all tension leeched from my spine. That is when I
know.
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| Killorglin, Ireland |
I almost feel ready for
that final push. Ready to face Each Wind That Blows and see it through to the
end, and on to new beginnnings.
All photos by Susannah Cord unless stated otherwise. Copyright 2015
