A face

It’s a good we went out to look at leaves last week since many trees are now already naked, as we saw on yesterday’s perambulation. I’ll get to those images – eventually.

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While this year it has been subdued, the Fall of 2022 was golden and the glory of it lasted for weeks. I doubt I shall ever see its like again, but count myself fortunate to have witnessed such splendour and shall keep forever those images in the same place where I hold memories of Antarctica and Tibet.

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In that same part of my heart and soul, I keep Boxing Day of 2024 when for a couple of hours, freezing mist coated every surface. We could so easily have missed the spectacle because it was isolated to a few sunlit pockets where the temperature was just right for only those brief, wonderful moments.

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We might well not have gone out on Boxing Day and furthermore, if we’d taken our usual route, we would have been unaware of fields and trees sheathed in glittering ice on the other side of the hill.

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My most cherished memories are visual and primarily natural, although I certainly enjoy beautiful architecture, ancient ruins and bridges! I have always had a weakness for pretty pictures of many sorts.

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They don’t need to be fine art. I used to frame pictures from calendars or magazines, anything I found pleasing to look at.

My walls are covered in an eclectic array ranging from batik to framed postcards, to tapestries and professional photographs. To anyone else, it would doubtless seem a hodge-podge, but that’s me, no apologies. Moving back east from Washington, I had to part with quite a few of my wall hangings. It was a struggle!

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Apart from a couple of photos of favourite people, there are no human faces to be seen on display, yet a small number are etched into my brain. Faces that I saw just once, for a matter of minutes, such as this man in Tibet. We had stopped for a break on the road from Katmandu to Lhasa. He came toward us riding a little horse and leading a foal.

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Something about the image struck me as poignant. Ever since I was old enough to know about Tibet I had longed to go there. It wasn’t that I believed in Shangri-la or had any fantasies about the roof of the world. In truth, I knew very little about it. Yet when I placed my feet on Tibetan soil, I was exhilarated in a way I had never been before, nor have been since.

Although I travelled quite a bit in those days, I was not a particularly good traveller, suffering from frequent stomach problems and prone to other ailments. So Tibet was likely to be a challenge, given the limited facilities available then, as well as the potential for problems with high altitude, tremendously long hours on the road and very cold temperatures.

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Maybe it’s proof that overcoming a challenge is often mind over matter. It was cold and we were tired and uncomfortable in our bus. The food was ghastly and accommodation very basic, but it bothered me not at all. Other members of our group suffered severely from the altitude. I, luckily did not. I loved every moment of being in Tibet, regarding it as the greatest privilege to be there.

It sounds fanciful, but it all felt so familiar, as if I’d gone home. I loved the Tibetan people and my heart ached for them, always will. This man’s face is representative of all the others. I shall carry it to the grave without ever needing to see the photograph.