An Unusual Book

Jasmine Marie Engler, modified 10 Years ago at 4/13/13 10:05 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 4/13/13 10:05 PM

An Unusual Book

Posts: 69 Join Date: 5/1/12 Recent Posts
I am currently reading a book called "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce. It is about a 65 year old sedentary man who treks across over 450 miles of England in yachting shoes in order to convince an old friend of his to continue fighting cancer. It is written based on a true story. It brings a true depth to the concepts that are touched upon by many in this forum, and, in some ways, granted me a great deal of insight into life and what truly makes a valuable one. At this moment, he has just reached an epiphany, and sent his credit card and any other unnecessaries back home to his wife. I will only present this one excerpt, but, if it intrigues you, I highly recommend this book for anyone on a journey to find themselves.

"It had never been such a beautiful May. Every day the sky shone a peerless blue, untouched by cloud. Already, the gardens were crammed with lupins, roses, delphiniums, honeysuckle, and lime clouds of lady's mantle. Insects cricked, hovered, bumbled, and whizzed. Harold passed fields of buttercups, poppies, ox-eye daisies, clover, vetch, and campion. The hedgerows were sweetly scented with bowing heads of elderflower, and wound through with wild clematis, hops, and dog roses. The allotments too were burgeoning. There were rows of lettuce, spinach, chard, beetroot, early new potatoes, and wigwams of peas. The first of the gooseberries hung like hairy green pods. Gardeners left out boxes of surplus produce for passersby, with a sign: HELP YOURSELF.
Harold knew that he had found his way. He told the story about Queenie, and the garage girl, and he asked strangers if they would be so good as to help. In return, he listened. He might be offered a sandwich, or a bottle of water, or a fresh set of plasters. He never took more than he needed, and gently refused lifts, or walking equipment, or extra packages of food to keep him going. Snapping a peapod from a curling stem, he ate it greedily, like sweets. The people he met, the places he passed, were all steps on his journey, and he kept a place in his heart for all of them. After the night in the barn, Harold continued to sleep outside. He chose dry places, and was careful not to upset things. He washed in public lavatories, fountains, and streams. He rinsed his clothes where no one was watching. He thought of the half-forgotten world lived in houses and streets and cars, where people ate three times a day, slept by night, and kept each other company. He was glad they were safe, and he was glad too that he was at last outside them.
Harold took the A roads, B roads, lanes, and tracks. The compass quivered northward and he followed. He went by day or by night, as the mood took him; mile after mile after mile. If the blisters were bad, he bound them with duct tape. He slept when the need for sleep came, and then he returned to his feet and walked again. He went under stars, and the tender light of the moon, when it hung like an eyelash and the tree trunks hung like bones. He walked through wind and weather, and beneath the sun-bleached skies. It seemed to Harold that he had been waiting all his life to walk. He no longer knew how far he had come, but only that he was going forward. The pale Cotswold stone became the red brick of Warwickshire, and the land flattened into middle England. Harold reached his hand to his mouth to brush away a fly, and felt a beard growing in thick tufts. Queenie would live. He knew it.
And yet the strangest part in all this was that a driver might overtake him, and briefly observe an old fellow in a shirt and tie, perhaps a pair of yachting shoes, and see no more than another man, off down the road. It was so funny, and he was so happy, so much at one with the land beneath his feet, he could laugh and laugh with the simplicity of it."

I hope that this book can shed some light upon your own journeys, as well.

Love and Happiness,
Jazzi