“Bet that went over well.”
He continued writing. Words invisible at pen’s tip emerged in its wake.
He abruptly ceased. A quiet forceful sigh emerged. Pen settled, he closed the pages thus revealing Palubian leather covering the Bogandora. Gold words inlaid the upper front cover. Translated, they read
………………Gifted by The Ancient Elder of the Mensharians
His hand rested upon the cover as a father’s hand upon a beloved child.
He beheld Sunrise cloaked in muted fuchsia dancing among melodious clouds of purpled blues, crimsoned reds and sassy greys that splashed a shimmering blue sky. Composure restored, he whispered, Thank You.
Giving attention to his now-seated unexpected guest, pause gave way to an impish glint of his eye.
Not at first, he replied. It amazes what a little marinade uncovers.
“’Not at first…?’”
A simple answer, like an ocean’s surface, conceals immense treasures, weighs the heart and beckons the explorer.
“And where was this treasure map?”
Magical navigations happen when we embrace the alchemy of the nature of words.
“Wow! Why not simply say ‘…the nature of words,’ or, ‘…the alchemy of words?’”
Words awash the canvas of our imaginations. Sadly, too many individuals force words to interpret the picture, a task for which they are ill-prepared.
“Ahh…the premise that words encapsulate thought.”
Yes, precisely!
The glint lasted longer this time.
What matters more than the why or the what is the how. ‘How’ is where the magic hides!
“Hmmm… So you revealed the map and uncovered the treasure?”
Yes and Yes.
Words lamp one’s feet and light the path. But this ability to see requires special lenses. Do you have time for a short exploration?
“I’m game.”
The Bogandora came to rest at his guest fingertips. The touch surprised.
Read this. Just open it; the correct passage will appear.
The time-ambered pages were surprisingly warm and soft like a baby’s eyes.
Upon focusing, words appeared.
Out loud, please – you have an enticing voice.
“’There is no great, long poem about baseball. It may be that baseball is itself its own great, long poem.
“‘This had occurred to me in the course of my wondering why home plate wasn’t called fourth base. And then it came to me, “Why not?”
“‘Meditate on the name, for a moment, “home.”
“‘Home is an English word virtually impossible to translate into other tongues. No translation catches the associations, the mixture of memory and longing, the sense of security and autonomy and accessibility, the aroma of inclusiveness, of freedom from wariness that cling to the word “home” and are absent from “house” or even “my house.”
“‘Home is a concept, not a place; it’s a state of mind where self-definition starts. It is origins, a mix of time and place and smell and weather wherein one first realizes one is an original; perhaps like others, especially those one loves; but discreet, distinct, not to be copied.
“‘Home is where one first learned to be separate, and it remains in the mind as the place where reunion, if it were ever to occur, would happen.
“‘All literary romance, all romance epic, derives from the Odyssey and it is about going home. It’s about rejoining; rejoining a beloved, rejoining parent to child, rejoining a land to its rightful owner or rule.
“‘Romance is about putting things aright after some tragedy has put them asunder. It is about restoration of the right relations among things. And “going home” is where that restoration occurs, because that’s where it matters most.
“‘Baseball is, of course, entirely about going home. It’s the only game you ever heard of where you want to get back to where you started. All the other games are territorial – you want to get his or her territory – but not baseball. Baseball simply wants to get you from here, back around to here.’
“‘Spoke by the late Angelo Bartlett “Bart” Giamatti, the seventh Commissioner of Major League Baseball and a former President of Yale University’
Powerful, isn’t it? Two simple little words, baseball and home, awashed your imagination.
Why is not the question. How is and homes all the magic.
“So, you like my voice?”
Would you like to explore further, to learn what really happened and why it dissolved a cancer from the American landscape?
Lagniappe
“If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have thus been kept alive through use.
“The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.” Charles Darwin, from his autobiography written in 1876
Hmmm…
Rama-Kandra: The Frenchman does not forget and he does not forgive.
Neo: You know him?
Rama-Kandra: I know only what I need to know. I know that if you want to take something from our world into your world that does not belong there, you must go to the Frenchman.
Neo: Is that what you’re doing here?
Kamala: Rama, please!
Rama-Kandra: I do not want to be cruel, Kamala. He may never see another face for the rest of his life.
Neo: I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that question.
Rama-Kandra: No. I don’t mind. The answer is simple. I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But where we are from, that is not enough. Every program that is created must have a purpose; if it does not, it is deleted. I went to the Frenchman to save my daughter. You do not understand.
Neo: I just have never…
Rama-Kandra: …heard a program speak of love?
Neo: It’s a… human emotion.
Rama-Kandra: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies. I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?
Neo: Anything.
Rama-Kandra: Then perhaps the reason you’re here is not so different from the reason I’m here.
From the opening minutes of The Matrix Revolutions, second of the trilogy
“Home is a concept, not a place; it’s a state of mind where self-definition starts.”
“…it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies.”
