My mom recommended a book when I was home in Maine at Christmas time, which she rarely does although she and my dad both read voraciously. Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walters, was an easy, mostly happy read, and I liked this particular passage about hope so much that I took a photo of it with my phone so I could keep it for a while.
But aren’t all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos – we know what’s out there. It’s what isn’t that truly compels us. Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple short car rides and regional jet lags – four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon – but true quests aren’t measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope. There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant – sail for Asia and stumble on America – and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.
The hope of scarecrows and tin men, he might be on to something.
1 Comment
No place like home? Or that what you sought was all around you all the time?
Thanks for another thoughtful post, Emily. And don’t back off on the quests.