text and images britt-arnhild
I am sure you have experienced it, just as strong as I have, as I am.
The way books, reading, enrichen our lives.
I flew down to Oslo yesterday morning, back home again in the late afternoon. On the plane I started a book which I has been in my shelves for some time. Two friends came to The House in the Woods for dinner a few days ago, the three of us meet regularly, for friendship, food, sharing.....of our lives and our reading "You haven´t read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Farold Fry yet?" my friend Solveig, who is leaving tomorrow for a year in California, cried. "Oh, but you MUST read it, it is such an amazing book!"
I was sleepy. Flying always makes me so.
But on the flight down I managed to keep my eyes open, and to read.
.......and even to take a few photos of the break of the day, from seat 3F.
Harold Fry, an elderly, recently retired man, days like colourless beads streched out in front of him. Nothing to live for, nothing to look forward to. Then one day he gets a letter from a woman he worked with 20 years ago. A goodbye letter, the woman is dying of cancer.
This is a shock for Harold Fry. He writes the woman a few lines of sympathy, tells his wife that he is walking over to the postbox to post the letter.......and then continues to walk, and walk and walk......all the way from the south of England up to Berwick upon Thyne (close to The Holy Island Lindisfarne by the way)
A non-believer (I have tried but God didn´t mean anything to me), dull, ordinary man, no walking training, no walking shoes, no backpack, not even a water bottle, he continues to walk from north to south. Day after day.
Days with time for memories, reflections, meetings along the way.
Meetings when he is the catalysator which helps people to share from their lives. Which makes a difference.
Walking towards a goal.
A pilgrimage.
A book I already know will follow me a long way.
A Pilgrimage.
A way of walking.
A way of living.
A way we can all live our lives. With time for reflactions. A time for memories, also the uncomfortable ones, the ones that hurt.
Time to stop and listen, to your next door neighbor, the woman sitting next to you on the bus, the old man at the café, the boy who sells you tickets at the movies, the girl behind the counter at the gas station. The beggar. The street musician. Your friend. Your child.
To see your kin.
Not only with your eyes but also with your heart.
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Tomorrow I plan to write Life Enriched by Books II.
And then I will have a suggestion.
For me.
For you.
For all of us.
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Photos, by my cellphone, HTC Desire, from seat 3F on SAS´s 8 o´clock flight from Trondheim to Oslo.
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Seat 3D was occupied, seat 3E was free, until the last 20 minutes of the flight. Then a man came from back in the plane. The flight was late, he was in a hurry to reach his next flight to Zürick and was taken to this almost front seat to be fast out of the plane.
We started to talk.
20 minutes of sharing.