earth on foot 14
21 august 2025
I’m thinking of England. Worton Park, Oxford, specifically, where our group stayed, cooked, and celebrated a special wedding. One morning, I awoke to see a tee shirt drying in the sunshine outside of our window. Since I love sleuthing, I surmised that S., David’s cousin, had already taken his early morning run.
Sometimes objects have a certain presence. A perfect row of shoes neatly placed on a shelf with obvious care; a houseplant sitting quietly in a corner, growing with wild grace; a worn leather suitcase hidden in the bedroom of a Philadelphia estate sale. S.’s tee shirt, for me, was one such object.
He’d come to Europe with few things—his guitar and a couple of shirts—to play a gig, and got stuck in Berlin. Airports closed. The other family members couldn’t attend the wedding; he couldn’t return home as planned. He was quietly telephoning all during the events, and playing a bit (a lot) of guitar.
S. and I went running together, along the canal, by houseboats and across fields of grass, sometimes near horses. Running is good medicine!
UK memory part 2
Julia’s house and gardens along the River Avon, near Warwick Castle
My friend Julia, dubbed a “mythical figure”by her students, taught me acupuncture. Once, she demonstrated for a group what it meant to be a practitioner of acupuncture, or a “practitioner for life”. Holding a very full jug of water as a prop, she said, “When we’re calm, we walk around, go about our day, and the water—our essence—doesn’t spill. We move about with ease. But then, something happens. It may be something small, but we lose our balance just a little—and with this, the water begins to tremble.” Julia gently bobbled the jar of water. “And maybe something else then happens, throws us off again. We become increasingly upset.” Water splashes out more and more, and Julia is panic-walking like a frenzied goose. Things are getting wet!
“Then,” she said, “a friend comes by, sees you in your current state.” Julia requests the hand of someone in the audience. They stand in for the practitioner, the friend. “May I?” they say, and gently take the water. “I’ll just hold this for a while for you, shall I? Just for now.” Everyone, including Julia, exhales! Breathing more freely at this example of a simple act of kindness, a metaphor: a friend, practitioner, remembers who you are when you have forgotten.
It took me many years to understand that my education was somewhat unusual. But, I loved Julia’s metaphor. And even now as I think of it, I cherish the idea that we’re all here in part to help one another as we journey forward; to cherish one another when we forget our grandeur.
Julia, her lithe figure bathed in golden light as we departed, waved goodbye beside her magical house. We all waved, and continued waving, until we turned the corner of the long road and could see each other no more.
S. is home now. He sent a smiling photo of himself and his wife, relief and joy obvious in their faces.
