January 4, 2025
The beginning of this blog was written about three weeks ago. Absolutely everything has changed since then, I am not, by the way, convinced that the E and O is a fabulous place anymore. I now see it as an anachronism, a colonial luxury hotel. AND it is expensive, My new hotel, at this moment, less expensive than scabies infested Penang Lexis Suites.
Approximately Three Weeks Ago
Well first the amazing news. I was able to get reservations here at the E & O – a miracle as they were fully booked. So I left Lexis Suites Penang and its scabies – got all packed and ready to go. Took a long time but all of my earthly possessions are in suitcases – some with me and some not.
So I get there and cannot believe my eyes. So many wonderful things have happened already. All staff remember me from my previous stay, here during my cataract surgery. Stayed twice. It is a FABULOUS place.
Located here are several suites named for people who have stayed here. Rudyard Kipling suite is one and Herman Hesse another. For some obscure reason I do not know anything about Herman Hesse. Therefore, Googled him. Found this amazing quote, which is triply amazing because there is a tree just outside my door.
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
― Herman Hesse, Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte
Is this not profound writing??? I accidentally discovered these words. I am surrounded by trees, you shall see photos of them at the end of the blog.
Photos of the trees taken on that day will follow this blog. The Hermann Hesse suite was enormous. Full of memorabilia. Took photos at the time but they seemed irrelevant as I had put the E and O experience behind me. One photo remained. The desk with an old fashioned type writer. There is a photograph of my Uncle Dave Dryburgh at work – he was a sportswriter for the Regina Leader Post. It is the same typewriter. Well not the same one but so interesting to see it in the Herman Hesse Suite, remembering the iconic photo of my Uncle.
I am EXTREMELY happy in my new hotel overlooking the E and O AND the huge tree. My room here is tiny, minuscule actually. But I am only one person with limited possessions. Do not need all the space and the pretention. Pretentious: attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.
Time for a little humor. Straight from Andy Borowitz to you. Great title: Trump Predicts Biggest Crowd Ever for Sentencing of a President
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Moments after Judge Juan Merchan announced Friday afternoon that Donald J. Trump would be sentenced on January 10, Trump predicted that he would draw the biggest crowd ever for the sentencing of a president. “This is going to be one for the record books,” Trump boasted. “George Washington and Abe Lincoln never had a sentencing like this.” In another audacious prediction, he added, “More people want to see my sentencing than my Inauguration.” Speaking to reporters, Judge Merchan said he would not sentence Trump to community service, explaining, “I couldn’t do that to a community.”
Don’t you love it?? An audacious prediction AND the Judge saying he would not sentence Trump to community service because he “wouldn’t do that to a community.””
Audacious is a great word. The adjective has two meanings.
- showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks
- showing an impudent lack of respect
The synonyms are fun:. plucky, daredevil, devil-may-care, madcap, , mettlesome, gutsy, spunky, ballsy, cheeky, brass-necked, lippy, mouthy, smart-arsed, sassy, nervy.
Many, if not most, readers will be surprised to learn that there is humor in the Quran. An example is found at Quran 6: 8-9 They say, “Why has no ‘visible’ angel come with this?” Had We sent down an angel, the matter would have certainly been settled ‘at once.” And they would have never been given more time ‘to repent’. 9. And if We had sent an angel, We would have certainly made it ‘assume the form of a man—leaving them more confused than they already are.”
