England and the Grand Canyon
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In a message dated 11/6/02 11:11:37 AM, karegree@... writes:
<< Yeah but that's because 100 miles in the UK can take 5 hours if they are
doing those damned road works! Everytime I hit the M-1 >>
<<Yeah but that's because 100 miles in the UK can take 5 hours if they are
doing those damned road works! Everytime I hit the M-1 ..... >>
When we were driving from York to London, it was stressful. Seemed others
were stressed, and rushing, and stopping and starting.
Maybe, for me, it's just that they were all driving on the wrong side of the
road and every truck seemed like imminent death. Then we stopped at a
restaurant, somewhere around Lincoln or south of there? and then I discovered
clotted cream, having missed it somehow before. Then I wanted to stay
another week and eat clotted cream. I've found they sell little glass jars
of it at the health food store three blocks from my house.
When I was in England the first time I was young and alone and homesick, and
was downtown London, walking around alone, and I went to the Twinings Tea
shop (VERY small shop), and there was a little alley to the left of there,
toward Picadilly Square, I think. There was an Indian wedding in the
neighborhood, and LOTS of couple went by with the women all in gold-thread
saris. And then I turned and saw a tiny travel agency. The entire business
was probably no bigger than one of my childrens' bedrooms. But the window
by the front door was ENTIRELY taken up with a poster of the Grand Canyon.
No words, just the photo. At least six feet high, from about my knee level
up. As wide as the reach of my arms. And I stayed still in front of that.
I was 24 and had lived all my life in Texas and in New Mexico. I was at the
Grand Canyon when I was two. There are photographs. But not since. And it
didnt' matter. MUCH of New Mexico is that big, that awesome, that quiet.
But I stood in front of that poster and KNEW, deeper than my gut, why that
was so wonderful to people who had always been in England, where houses are
small, cars are small, roads are small, shops are small, things are busy and
tended. Back yard "gardens" are gorgeous lawns surrounded by wonderful
flowers, put in artfully, reproducing themselves heartily year after year.
Most of what is seen is touched and tended by man. And what isn't has a
human history. Sherwood Forest. Lincoln Forest. Even a kid from New
Mexico can know tales of life and death in those places. Some fields were
cleared a thousand years ago, and copses of trees stand like little islands
in some of the larger ones. Maybe those trees have never been cleared, ever.
And exotic (to me) birds, and hedgehogs, and foxes might live in there. but
the whole little tree-island might not be bigger than an American house and
yard, or a little shopping center we're so used to. And it is surrounded by
man.
But the Grand Canyon stretches for hundreds of untended, un-looked at miles
on either side of the visitor's centers.
It would be interesing to overlay a same-scale map of the grand canyon on
England.
Sandra
<< Yeah but that's because 100 miles in the UK can take 5 hours if they are
doing those damned road works! Everytime I hit the M-1 >>
<<Yeah but that's because 100 miles in the UK can take 5 hours if they are
doing those damned road works! Everytime I hit the M-1 ..... >>
When we were driving from York to London, it was stressful. Seemed others
were stressed, and rushing, and stopping and starting.
Maybe, for me, it's just that they were all driving on the wrong side of the
road and every truck seemed like imminent death. Then we stopped at a
restaurant, somewhere around Lincoln or south of there? and then I discovered
clotted cream, having missed it somehow before. Then I wanted to stay
another week and eat clotted cream. I've found they sell little glass jars
of it at the health food store three blocks from my house.
When I was in England the first time I was young and alone and homesick, and
was downtown London, walking around alone, and I went to the Twinings Tea
shop (VERY small shop), and there was a little alley to the left of there,
toward Picadilly Square, I think. There was an Indian wedding in the
neighborhood, and LOTS of couple went by with the women all in gold-thread
saris. And then I turned and saw a tiny travel agency. The entire business
was probably no bigger than one of my childrens' bedrooms. But the window
by the front door was ENTIRELY taken up with a poster of the Grand Canyon.
No words, just the photo. At least six feet high, from about my knee level
up. As wide as the reach of my arms. And I stayed still in front of that.
I was 24 and had lived all my life in Texas and in New Mexico. I was at the
Grand Canyon when I was two. There are photographs. But not since. And it
didnt' matter. MUCH of New Mexico is that big, that awesome, that quiet.
But I stood in front of that poster and KNEW, deeper than my gut, why that
was so wonderful to people who had always been in England, where houses are
small, cars are small, roads are small, shops are small, things are busy and
tended. Back yard "gardens" are gorgeous lawns surrounded by wonderful
flowers, put in artfully, reproducing themselves heartily year after year.
Most of what is seen is touched and tended by man. And what isn't has a
human history. Sherwood Forest. Lincoln Forest. Even a kid from New
Mexico can know tales of life and death in those places. Some fields were
cleared a thousand years ago, and copses of trees stand like little islands
in some of the larger ones. Maybe those trees have never been cleared, ever.
And exotic (to me) birds, and hedgehogs, and foxes might live in there. but
the whole little tree-island might not be bigger than an American house and
yard, or a little shopping center we're so used to. And it is surrounded by
man.
But the Grand Canyon stretches for hundreds of untended, un-looked at miles
on either side of the visitor's centers.
It would be interesing to overlay a same-scale map of the grand canyon on
England.
Sandra