The Infinite Wonders of Our Everyday World | GeoEx
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The Infinite Wonders of Our Everyday World

By Don George | April 30, 2020

Last week I shared the tale of my impromptu Earth Day cherry-blossom-viewing pilgrimage, which transported me unexpectedly from my hometown in northern California to the Philosopher’s Path in Kyoto. That story seemed to strike a chord with readers, who responded with dozens of kind and buoying comments. Thank you so much! Your words were tremendously inspiring!

Those responses propelled another three-lesson journey this week, which took me around the world without ever leaving my room! Here’s the story of that unexpected bloom.

Lesson #1: It’s a small world after all

As I read the responses from readers, I was reminded anew of one great lesson my travels always renew: that wherever we may live, whatever our differences in background and belief, we share a need for wonder, and hope, and dream. Melissa in Cape Town wrote that after reading my tale, she was transported around the globe by her banana and lemon trees. Margie in Arizona shared the celebratory news that her saguaro cacti were beginning to bloom. For Ruth in Tel Aviv, three pebbles from Shikoku’s Iya Valley had become her precious portal to the peace of Japan. Other readers wrote from Australia to California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Minnesota.

Reading these, I thought: My cherry blossom is your saguaro cacti is your lemon tree. Each is a tile in the mosaic of our shared humanity. And it is soul-soothing and heart-expanding to feel this global embrace, especially now as we all shelter in place.

Lesson #2: That small world contains infinite wonders

As I was being transported around the world through these readers’ words, I discovered a homespun site that offers a similarly mind-expanding visual ride. This is the post-quarantine Facebook group “View from my window,” created for home-bound members to post a photo of their everyday view. The result is a breathtaking lesson in the size and variety of our globe, and the extraordinary breadth of what “everyday” holds.

Scrolling through the page, I saw a British backyard basking in blue and golden blooms and an Illinois field flowing with freshly fallen snow, a sky-swirling sunrise pasteling Palau and skyscrapers sizzling in dusk-lit Singapore, snow-tipped peaks in Peru and sun-drenched beaches in Brazil, cobbled piazzas in Italy and blue-green bays in Guadeloupe. I saw deer and elk and cockatoos, llamas and lambs and kangaroos. And as I learned last week, I thought anew that stopping and really seeing is the essential clue.

These world-spanning views brought home another truth I always re-learn when I’m far away: how one person’s exotic is another person’s everyday. On my last trip to Athens, a humble meal of bread, tomatoes, olives, and feta cheese tasted to me like a gourmet feast. My first morning in Siem Reap, a bicycle pilgrimage to Angkor Wat turned into a dog-dodging, puddle-spraying, mud-spinning magical mystery trot. On my most recent visit to Cusco, exploring the bustling central market—from pyramids of passion fruit to guinea pigs on a grill, rainbow-colored corn to so much more—became an exhilarating immersion in the daily rites of Peruvian life.

Wherever I travel, I marvel that the things I am experiencing—invigorating cities, poignant sites, spectacular landscapes, palate-popping delights—are the everyday reality of people who live in that place. It’s a truth I’ve learned in reverse with the Golden Gate Bridge. I drive over that orange icon every few days—but I’ve met countless visitors who have journeyed halfway around the planet with reverence due for a once-in-a-lifetime, time-stopping view.

Lesson #3: Those wonders are within us too

Yesterday, as I was again window-view-wandering the world, I happened upon a photo of Balinese rice paddies, and this triggered another memory. I had to search through my journals, but after some planetary page-flipping, I came upon the passage I was seeking, from a journey to Bali in 2012 to speak at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. I wrote this at the end of a week on the island, when that sacred place bestowed an unexpected grace:

On the day of my departure, I walked back through the rice fields, feeling singularly content. I had gotten to do just about everything I had been hoping to do on Bali, I was thinking. There was just one exception—I hadn’t heard a gamelan orchestra. I’d caught snatches of gamelan music at a couple of different performances during the festival, but I hadn’t had that soul-transporting immersion in the music that I remembered vividly from my first trip to Indonesia 34 years before.

Just as I was having these thoughts, approaching the end/beginning of the path, the sounds of a gamelan orchestra drifted on the air! I could hardly believe it—it was as if my thoughts had conjured those notes.

I reached the end of the path. To my right was the wide, paved driveway that led to the main street, but then I noticed to my left a narrow, hard-packed dirt path that paralleled a rock wall twice my height. The sounds of the gamelan were coming from somewhere beyond that wall. The wall disappeared into a densely vegetated interior, with a couple of red-tiled roofs visible in the distance. I figured that if I followed the path, eventually it would lead to a break in the wall where I could enter and discover the source of the gamelan music. I wanted to see the orchestra with my own eyes.

So I set off down this winding path, following the sinuous curve of the wall and the music’s tantalizing rise and fall.

I startled two workers who were on their way to restore a magnificent old house set among the paddies on the other side of a stream that paralleled the trail. They laughed and welcomed me to the forest. After 15 minutes of ambling, I came to a lush setting where palm trees, twining vines, giant ferns, and slick bushes with propeller-like leaves tangled the air. Still, there was no break in the wall, and the gamelan music was sounding fainter and fainter.

I stood in the shade of that jungly patch, puzzling over what to do, wondering if I would ever find the break in the wall when suddenly it hit me: I had already found the break in the wall; it was in my mind. Listen! I didn’t need to see the orchestramy wish had been to hear the gamelan. And there it was, all around me. What more did I want?

I walked back down the path and the sounds of the music swelled in the shadowed air. When I reached a point where it seemed loudest of all, I stopped and closed my eyes. Gongs, flutes, and drums gonged and trilled and boomed in layered patterns, lapidary high notes skipped like diamonds across a pond, bong-gong-gong-booming low notes reverberated in my ribs, rising and falling and rising, staccato and slow, each note like a drop of water from heaven, submerging me in a pool of otherworldly harmony. Time stopped.

After a while—ten minutes? twenty?—the music ceased, and the forest echoed with its silence.

Then the harmonies flowed anew, and suddenly I felt released. It was time to move on; I had a taxi to catch, a plane to board.

I realized that all day I had been regretting my imminent departure, despairing at having to lose this blessed place. Now Ubud had answered that need, bestowing one last lesson that would allow me to leave: I didn’t need to see the gamelan to hear its music, and I didn’t need to be in Bali to have Bali in me. It was already there, gonging and trilling and booming, rice paddy blooming, and it always would be.

I set my journal down and reflected once again that the wide world’s wonders are everywhere, without and within. The glories of the gamelan surrounded me anew, and I closed my eyes, to savor the view.

Yours in abiding wanderlust,
Don George

* * * * *

If you want the glories of the gamelan to surround you, listen below:

Thank you to all who have shared thoughts and words of encouragement with me; I truly appreciate it. Please continue to share your thoughts below; it’s such a treat to read your comments!

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JAVED AGHA
JAVED AGHA
4 years ago

An excellent expression of a beautiful world through your writings blending it with enchanting music.

Don
Editor
Don
4 years ago
Reply to  JAVED AGHA

Dear Javed, Thank you very much for your kind words! Happy travels — virtually and in the real world soon, I hope! Best wishes, Don

Melissa Sutherland
4 years ago

Thanks Don for your inspiring blog. I remarked to my husband that I too went to New York last Tuesday and to Istanbul the next day. Bobbi McFerrin’s song ‘ Don’t worry, be happy’ – how appropriate for these times – was being played over the loudspeaker by the local DJ for our neighbourhood and I was instantly transported back to Central Park 22 years ago when he performed there one evening and we sat and had a picnic with friends. The call to prayer ringing out in our neighbourhood from the local mosque the next evening took me straight… Read more »

Don
Editor
Don
4 years ago

Dear Melissa, Thank you so much for this beautiful note! Reading your words, I was transported to Central Park and so many happy memories there, and then on to Pakistan and the first time I ever heard the muezzin’s call. What a magical moment that was! I too am so grateful to have these memories to draw on now — and I am excited to make new memories when we can all travel again! All best wishes, Don

Stephen Kukoy
Stephen Kukoy
4 years ago

Thanks Don for another great experience!

Don
Editor
Don
4 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Kukoy

Dear Stephen, Thank you so much for your kind words and your great support! They are deeply appreciated! All best wishes, Don

Dale Hamblin
Dale Hamblin
4 years ago

Dear Don:
Sorry for not responding last week, for me I would love to be in Japan when the Irises are in bloom maybe month after Cherry Blossom bloom! Hiking in search of rare and unusual blooms would be a treat. Today your Orchestra and Bali were very intriging, I will listen as soon as Grand Old Opry is over!
Thank You,
Dale L Hamblin

Don
Editor
Don
4 years ago
Reply to  Dale Hamblin

Dear Dale, Thank you so much for your great note! The irises do bloom after the cherry blossoms and they are spectacular! I very much hope you can see them! I also hope you enjoyed the gamelan orchestra — just a little different from the Grand Ole Opry! 🙂 How wonderful that we can enjoy both!! All best wishes and happy travels! Don

terry
terry
4 years ago

Well this shows music is certainly an international language

Don
Editor
Don
4 years ago
Reply to  terry

Dear Terry, Yes! Absolutely! Isn’t it wonderful how music can move us and transport us? Thanks for your note! Best wishes, Don

Jannes Gibson
Jannes Gibson
4 years ago

Thanks for the memories of living in Indonesia from 1972-74

Marty Souto-Martinez
4 years ago
Reply to  Jannes Gibson

Don – it’s always such a pleasure to read your writings; keep it up
Marty Sarbey de Souto, CTC

Don
Editor
Don
4 years ago

Dear Marty, Thank you so much for these kind and inspiring words! I really appreciate your support! All best wishes, Don

Don
Editor
Don
4 years ago
Reply to  Jannes Gibson

Dear Jannes, Thank you for your note. How wonderful that you lived in Indonesia from 1972-74! That must have been an amazing experience! What part of Indonesia were you living in? Was there one highlight from the two years that still stands out for you? All best wishes, Don

Jean Dyson
Jean Dyson
4 years ago

Thanks so much for the wonderful concert! I was transported once again to a foreign country and blessed to see such beautiful people. Listening to the music made my day.

Don
Editor
Don
4 years ago
Reply to  Jean Dyson

Dear Jean, Thank you so much for your great note! I’m so happy that this music resonated with you as it did and does with me! Reading your note made my day! 🙂 All best wishes, Don


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