"When you are ruled by curiosity. . . you are rarely affronted."
The quote is from The Thin Place, a novel by Kathryn Davis reviewed in The New York Times last Sunday. I read the review because I recognized the title. The Celts came up with the term "thin place" to describe a locale, on the planet or in the human consciousness, where physical and spiritual worlds brush against one another. Next summer I am going to Iona, a small island off the west coast of Scotland and for fifteen centuries considered by many to be one of the "thin places" on the planet.
It seems to me that I have set foot on rather a number of thin places, which tells me that the designation is more a state of mind than one of latitutude and longitude.
What do you see? What do you hope to see?
I never much liked The Chronicles of Narnia. A dutiful mother, I read every single one of them out loud to my children one summer. (Okay, so I skipped a few paragraphs here and there.) It was a challenge; science fiction, fairy tales, extended allegory -- not my style. (So why, dear girl, are you reading both The Sparrow and Outlander at present? See first sentence above.) But there was one character in Narnia whom I loved -- little Reppicheep, the brave mouse commander, last seen determindedly heading toward the unknown horizon.
When you hope to see the next thing, you are not guaranteed a happy ending. But you have to see it anyway.
It's been nearly a year since my stepmother died. A tiny hospital room in Cincinnati can be a thin, thin place -- although my observation at 4:00 a.m. was that no one else seemed aware of that.
I have decided, at 52, to count it as good fortune that thin places stretch before my unsteady feet with unnerving frequency.
And likewise, good fortune that I am spared the certainty and judgmental acumen that mark those less curious.
"When you are ruled by curiousity. . . you are rarely affronted." The reviewer goes on to say, in a statement that makes sense in the context of her piece, that that statement "sounds very doglike."
I was reading the paper outside. I came into the house, looked at the dog, and said, "You and me, babe."
The quote is from The Thin Place, a novel by Kathryn Davis reviewed in The New York Times last Sunday. I read the review because I recognized the title. The Celts came up with the term "thin place" to describe a locale, on the planet or in the human consciousness, where physical and spiritual worlds brush against one another. Next summer I am going to Iona, a small island off the west coast of Scotland and for fifteen centuries considered by many to be one of the "thin places" on the planet.
It seems to me that I have set foot on rather a number of thin places, which tells me that the designation is more a state of mind than one of latitutude and longitude.
What do you see? What do you hope to see?
I never much liked The Chronicles of Narnia. A dutiful mother, I read every single one of them out loud to my children one summer. (Okay, so I skipped a few paragraphs here and there.) It was a challenge; science fiction, fairy tales, extended allegory -- not my style. (So why, dear girl, are you reading both The Sparrow and Outlander at present? See first sentence above.) But there was one character in Narnia whom I loved -- little Reppicheep, the brave mouse commander, last seen determindedly heading toward the unknown horizon.
When you hope to see the next thing, you are not guaranteed a happy ending. But you have to see it anyway.
It's been nearly a year since my stepmother died. A tiny hospital room in Cincinnati can be a thin, thin place -- although my observation at 4:00 a.m. was that no one else seemed aware of that.
I have decided, at 52, to count it as good fortune that thin places stretch before my unsteady feet with unnerving frequency.
And likewise, good fortune that I am spared the certainty and judgmental acumen that mark those less curious.
"When you are ruled by curiousity. . . you are rarely affronted." The reviewer goes on to say, in a statement that makes sense in the context of her piece, that that statement "sounds very doglike."
I was reading the paper outside. I came into the house, looked at the dog, and said, "You and me, babe."
