Edinburgh

Update:
We arrived. Not all at once, nor really in any sort of timely fashion, but in small groups from the airport or various previous hostels we slowly trickled into the lobby of the hostel. Some, like Bentley, showed up by themselves after a full day of exploring, and others arrived in cabs from the airport, harried and jet-lagged and laying all our luggage in a giant pile, with Christopher watching over it all, periodically opening the box to his brand new guitar to peer in at it.
Many of us went on a first trek—to the Scott Monument and to read poetry on Calton hill—but many of us made small wandering groups of our own to keep mobile and fight off jetlag, as well as exploring our brand new city. We all finally coalesced for dinner and had our first meeting with all members present, accompanied by fine ramen made by Karla. Most of us were too tired to do much after this, but a fine few trekked up to St. Giles’ to hear a concert of Italian baroque music in benefit of the earthquake victims, and came back home around 10:30, dead and crashing into our bunks.
posted by Christian S.

Scott Monment to Castle, photo by Chris B

Matt, photo by Roxanne:

Ladies at the Scott Monument, photo by Roxanne:

Bess and Whitney on the monument, photo by Roxanne:

Rick, photo by Jon:

Lauren, photo by Roxanne:

Monument gargoyle, photo by Sydney:

Jon photo by Roxanne:

Edinburgh, photo by Whitney:

Bess, photo by Whitney (Photo of the Week in the Portrait category):

Arthur's Seat from Scott Monument, Jon's photo:

Fake Parthenon on Calton Hill, photo by Jon:

Dinner at the Youth Hostel, Photo of the Day by Jon:

Our youth hostel is on Leith Street. Also on the street is the birthplace of Arthur Conan Doyle.Everywhere on Leith Street and Princes Street (and probably elsewhere) is construction, as they are putting in a tram system. As far as I can tell, everyone hates the idea. James McDonald Reid, who told stories and played the bagpipes for us, said that it is the Liberal Democratic Party's fault, as a minority party needed for the majority coalition in the Scottish Parliament, the trams are their pet project, and they hold the rest of the government hostage--trams for their cooperation. Politics everywhere! The Scott Monument:

Walter Scott:

The National Gallery and the Castle:

Ruskin and The Ages of Man

Has religion always had an ethical side? Does worshipping God always mean caring for or acting justly toward others? I don’t know of a religious system that doesn’t have such an emphasis. I wonder if the embedded injustice (patriarchy) exists mostly because it/they are simply so old. Religion is deeply conservative, in the best and worst senses of the word—after the initial burst of prophetic, creative innovation. We (people, conservators, women, maintaining tradition, keeping families together, caring for children) make it conservative, turn the wild, mind-blowing innovations into traditions as soon as we can. But I think it’s OK—it’s good. I guess often any continuity—even that based on the wild-eyed revelations of a half-mad prophet—is better than chaos, disruption, disorder, war, starvation, dying children. A dying child is the worst evil. We can put up with lesser evils to prevent that—even our own oppression. Safety is a powerful motivator, one that I appreciate more the older and in some ways more fragile I get. Or more recognizing of the tenuousness, perilousness, fragility of human life.

I was thinking all this as I talked with Mike H. about Ruskin. Ruskin was a reformer, not a revolutionary. Revolution has glamour and cachet for the young, who feel invulnerable and see no hope in slow change. The revolutionary Wordsworth’s children die and he becomes conservative.

Somehow as I get older and more conservative in reality (I think a lot of my revolutionary ideas when very young were only abstract) I should still remember that impulse to overturn everything and make it new. Reform is boring—if safer and ultimately more likely to succeed. Ruskin died depressed, but many of his ideas are embodied now in Britain. Maybe all—revolutionaries, reformers, and conservative (and maybe they are natural phases/ progressions of the life span)—should be considered positive contributors to the benefit of humanity. (2005)

Hadrian's Wall (1997)

We rode the coach north and west [from Fountains Abbey], up and down hills on little winding roads, until everyone was car-sick. The hills grew higher and the valleys steeper--real forests appeared, not just tree plantations with the conifers planted in straight lines on the hillsides. We drove for miles beside the mounded remains of Hadrian's Wall with the ditch on the north side. Most of the Wall has been plundered to make the little pasture-walls that quilt the countryside, or the scattered shepherds' stone cots, now abandoned. We came to a high place on the Wall, with a wide view north to the Scottish border, and walked among the remains of a Roman fort, built a thousand years before the Abbey.

The little museum featured pictures of what the Commandant's quarters would have looked like, how the men slept in their barracks, the arrangement of the latrine. The museum didn't have many artifacts--a spear head, a Sicilian coin. It had a life-size model of a Roman on guard, wrapped in a wool cloak, eyes squinting against the wind. It was cold while we were there, even though the sun shone. Those soldiers were a long way from home.

In the end the Wall was not overrun but deserted, as the troops were called home to defend the Empire against attack closer to the capital. I suspect that many of the Romans just stayed here and contributed a Mediterranean strain to the mongrel English mix. [Then-three-year-old] Chris ran a half-mile along the top of the wall to where it disappeared in a copse of tall trees, and had to be brought back.

Church on Our Own

It's too far to find a way back to Glasgow for church on Sunday, so this is one of the few places we meet on our own, without visiting a formal ward or branch. We meet in the commons if it rains,

although you can still take a Sunday walk outside on a drizzly Sunday afternoon.
If it's sunny and warm, we meet out in the woods. Rowardennan hillside (2007):

Rose and Jordan are both talking about the Atonement. I still don't understand it. Or maybe I don't or can't accept it. The world, humankind--I--need healing. Maybe he (Jesus) is saying--don't suffer, let go the guilt, be happy. Repenting is required too--changing what I do when I do harm. It's something I need daily, as a process of life, rather than as one big event at the last, daily giving him my burdens, being grateful, thinking of him, following him. The muck of hurt and imperfection and mistake--just walk away from it, at the end of the day--walk away and leave it alone, don't dwell on it or stay in it or count it up or obsess on it. Just leave it and be happy.

Doing the Washing Up

We cook and clean up for ourselves for most of our meals on the trip. One day John had the students listen to Frasier reciting Robert Burns and I stayed behind washing up (2005):

While I was in the members' kitchen, a group of school-children came in, I'd guess between 6-10 years old, and enthusiastically began washing dishes in the sink next to me. One young man said he hoped to open a dishwashing shop, at 20p per dish. I said I wished I had such good helpers. A tiny girl said, "But you're from America, aren't you? I wouldn't want to go to America just to wash dishes!"

At which point I had several immediate and somewhat contradictory thoughts:

1. And I don't want to go to Scotland just to wash dishes!
2. Wherever you go, someone has to do the washing up, and the sooner you learn to do it yourself, the better.
3. A great many immigrants to America (and to Scotland) end up washing dishes, or doing similar jobs.

John Lennon (or somebody) said once, "Woman is the n___ of the world." That's one way to see it. But another way is that somebody has to gently encourage the children to do their washing up (both actually and metaphorically): to clean up after themselves, to not leave big messes behind, to treat the world gently, tread lightly, be mindful, take care. Learn to be a custodian, not an exploiter. If that's my job, I'm OK with it.

While the Others Climb Ben Lomond

I'm always the slowest as we walk, always at the back of the line. I dimly remember not being last--I remember being strong and quick as a child, running for the joy of it. But adulthood, motherhood, grandmotherhood, the passing of time, and I am slow and soft. At home I ride my Bike O' Death and swim in the BYU pool, strenuous efforts to delay further dissolution--but it's a holding pattern now, and the long slow decay.

Today I sit on a tussock of grass and moss at the edge of the lake, listening to birdsong, the sigh of wind in the trees, the never ending buzz and hum of traffic on the other side of the loch. I doze, still recovering from jet lag, and try to guess the kind of tree above my head; its tender spring leaves are serrated; its humped and knobby roots support my hummock of soil and small plants on the rock beach.

The lake water laps against the shore, sometimes silently, sometimes like a big wet kiss. The wind rises and chills despite the gentle sun. Across the loch the mountain sleeps, sides clad in dark evergreen and bright oak and charcoal heath and heather.

My knee is very sore from our walk along the lake yesterday. I wonder when the rhododendron buds will pop into wild magenta glory. I breathe quietly. I hum "On the Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond." I look at the used condom package and cigarette butt at my feet, and kick the rocks and sand over them without getting up. I close my eyes.

I dream that I am floating, up past the serrated leaves and into the open sky, sharing the sunlit air with quick birds that dart in and out of the canopy. The weight of flesh is gone. I blow and puff and tumble in the breeze. I stretch into thin little wisps, wind-spun cloud-threads that vanish in the light. I am sun above and lake below--far below, a shining mirror reflecting only sky.

A fish leaps and splashes near the shore and I start awake. I am warm on the sun-side and chill on the shadow-side, like a planet. My knee aches a little--I feel the sciatic nerves down the backs of both my legs, stiffness in my shoulders from carrying my pack. I watch the reedy grass bend in the ripples of clear water. I must tilt my head to see things up close with my bifocals. I close my eyes entirely to hear a bagpipe from the village below. Faintly. Maybe I'm dreaming again.

The earth is old and heavy, lined and worn, but fecund, gravid with life. The planet breathes. Her veins run quick and blue with water, but deep inside, her red heat, dense and pressured, creates new islands in the sea and mountains on the land. Much of the earth is ugly, homely, negligable. She is both varied and regular in grandest geology and smallest detail. She tolerates colonization and parasites, she lets others use her, she bears with their hunger until they are gone. She is patient until she is not.

The earth is my mother, I am her child. I learn her dispassion, her solidity, her humor. Like her I have my seasons. Like her I will come to an end. Until then, I am warm and green in the sun. -2007-

Bench Break

The 6 p.m. sun is low and warm. The wind sighs in the trees and birds sing--wonder what they are? I hear a dog barking in the distance. A sweet smell from a flowering tree nearby. The lake glimmers across a field and through the trees to the west. Bare hills raise their heads behind--or their backs, with vegetation on them like lichen on a stone. -2007-

Why Travel Is Important

I discover that the world is larger than my little conception of it.

I discover that although the large world is scary, I can survive in it.

It is good to do new things. It forces connections and creates abilities/resiliencies where they would not have been required.

People speak in different cadences everywhere. Their voices are beautiful and expressive. I will never know them all, but they each contain worlds. I must let them go.

It is something to step entirely out of one's life. I don't know for sure if it is good or bad, but it shakes things up.

I realize the important life-skills of finding food, shelter, staying clean, getting enough sleep. I learn to value my meagre possessions, because what I have is necessary. I learn how little I really need to survive.

I learn that courtesy and patience are necessary, as ever, with my fellow-travelers.

I learn the delight of the incidental contact with others in this new world. I value these encounters when they happen. I am nostalgic when they are over. -2003-

The Major Form of Transportation

We go by plane, train, coach, ferry, city bus, and London Underground, but our main form of transportation is what we're standing on. Here's what mine felt like after three days in Edinburgh, and just before the hike into Rowardennan:

Notes on Edinburgh (from Arthur's Seat, 2003)

Edinburgh is a most lovely little city. How did this bit of European cosmopolity and British eccentricity arise in the cold North? Philosophers and religionists came of age here--the Athens of the North. Brit stubbornness and oddity, with a gentle, lyrical (and tribal, and warlike) overlay of Celt.

My patrilineal ancestors--the Esplins--came from Perth, not far from here. They were shipbuilders, supposedly, not clansmen or gentry, but peasants and craftsmen. But I'm not sure I really feel a kinship yet to the people here, or the land.

Edinburgh seems designed for dramatic tourist moments. Holyroodhouse maybe is just another royal residence, but the gardens are gorgeous emerald green, and the cute Scottish guard-guys with tams (or berets?) and ponytails talk to the students. It's all within walking distance and line-of-sight. Arthur's Seat is a short, steep, but do-able walk, and then a short, steep, but do-able climb, and there is the Firth of Forth laid out in front of us, the city round, the Castle, the Old Town and New Town, the various follies on Calton Hill. I want to draw it--a tidy schematic. I will when we get back. Now, wind gusts and rain spits at us from all directions. My glasses are covered with rain and foggy from sweating the climb.

Notes on Edinburgh Castle (2003)

Layers and layers of history, battles, executions, sieges, heroes, rescues, Scotland vs. England, Catholic vs. Protestant. I note that Scotland is damatically more wealthy than Ireland (Dublin anyway) in terms of the public buildings. Maybe because Scotland was more or less peaceably under Imperial rule for past centuries, while Ireland was always fighting and being suppressed.

I had forgotten how beautiful the castle is. Some mountains in the western US I look at and imagine a human or magical presence--a fortress on this crag, or a high-placed monastery in that pass--but Edinburgh Castle is the human/magical presence on the craggy landscape. I remember when we first came to Edinburgh when C. was three years old. He likes the soldiers, the cannons, the guns and the swords, heading like an arrow under the ropes to the short swords (just his size) hung in rows on the walls of the Great Hall. He couldn't believe that he was not allowed to have just one, there were so many, so obviously meant for him to have. But he wasn't much impressed with the buildings until we took him down to the playground in the park at the base of the castle. He ran around and played, and then the mountain caught his attention. He looked up, up, and up.

"Did that mountain just grow there?" he said, "with that castle on top?"