You never know what may result from a seemingly insignificant happening.
I'm reading some letters written by Anton Chekhov during his travels to the eastern edges of Russia- all the way to the penal colony on the island called Sakhalin. His report on the state of life there is of less interest to me than his reports to family and friends about the journey.
Travel seems to me to be a literal analogy to the exploration of the unknown. Obvious statement, that. Or maybe not. I've discovered that people travel for different reasons, with very different approaches. Still, if one keeps at it, even the stubbornly single-minded are in some way affected by what they see, smell and hear.
I read recently a quote from T. S. Eliot:
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time"
Who am I to say he got it right? But I'll say it anyway, because I've found it so. Home, wherever and whatever we assign that moniker to, is never seen the same way after once leaving it.
And then a friend tells me she is reading T.S. Eliot's letters, as I am reading Chekhov's. So the trail leads me toward T.S., no doubt long overdue.
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