Daughter Walking

Some connections are so obvious, you wonder how you managed not to see them before. Last summer I started re-reading Basho's Journey to a Far Province, which produced the series of articles I am in the midst of writing at this blog. At the same time, my daughter has been walking the length of England from John O'Groats in northern Scotland to Lands End in southwest Britain, 1100 miles "End to End". She started in early July and completed this amazing journey last week. She wrote to us and her brother in Israel and her large comradery of friends around the world, a journal, which she distributed by E-mail. In between the digital journals, with their wonderful and lively accounts of places, paths, and persons, my wife and I would talk about what she was doing at nearly every dinner hour. My wife lived in England, Ireland, and Scotland, before coming to California, and loves the Isles. I lived in London, with my daughter and my first wife, and I too love England. (And greater the admiration with Tony Blair!) So we were more than ordinarily excited about her adventure. I must have been trying to occupy my unfulfilled enthusiasm for my daughter's journey when I turned to Basho!