CARPE DIEM

By Greg Evans

As we landed in loaded onto the bus for the trip to Gatwick Airport for our connecting flight I felt a little bit of fatigue after sleeping poorly on the flight from New York, but British Airways is my favorite airline to travel on. They were wonderful with my daughter, provided her a backpack to carry her crayons, coloring books, puzzle, dolls, books, chips, hair bows, rocks, leaves, and whatever else she may have located on the floor of the different airport terminals. They then provided us with delicious chicken salad sandwiches, and a wonderful selection of wine from I believe South Africa, and kept the wine flowing throughout the flight and then for dinner served a mouth watering spicy curry dish. On the air radio they had classical composers which I love and the stewardesses were friendly and helpful.

Well we then were on a bus destined for Gatwick and what fascinated me is that leaving Heathrow Airport we almost immediately found ourselves driving through the country side with sheep grazing and homesteads, hedge rows and forests. It was remarkable. For miles small villages and endless rolling green hills and land, lots of open land. It was beautiful and peaceful and I strangely thought about the great English writers from the past and it doesn't surprise me that they were inspired by the world around them. And back then it was even less built up and equally magical. England has an enchanting quality to it as if you might very well see a coterie of fairies flying past spreading pixie dust around or maybe an ogre chopping wood beside it's home in a 1,000 year-old tree trunk. I imagined what the Roman soldiers first thought when they arrived to a land so different then Italy and those that spent their lives building Hadrian's Wall. I dearly wanted to exit the bus and walk up to someone's cottage, knock on the door and ask them if they would have tea with me and talk about life in the English country side. I picture it to be a peaceful life, slowed down from the typical hustle and bustle of the big cities like London or Birmingham, though when my Uncle and Aunt lived in London I found it to be a pleasant city.

So there we'd be in Heathrow Airport which was a lot like JFK in New York, it was busy with people running from here to there, lines at the security luggage and body check areas but then in the blink of an eye we were miles from anything and anywhere. I lose myself in such serene surroundings and my imagination takes off. I can't help but wonder what other eyes of great minds who intrigue me daily with their insight and creativity, scientific exploration and necessary humor have looked upon the same small white cottage with the brown roof and gravel drive, or looked watching the meandering road racing past, the farm animals grazing and enjoying the cool midsummer's air. We did not see the sun for our entire stay in England though it didn't take away from the fetching aura of the charming island. The English countryside is a place where the poetry that lives inside all of us is brought to the surface and each person on that bus had they access to a note pad and pencil I imagine could have scribbled a metered line of blissful poetry. Carpe Diem!