See the world before you die!

From: pierre
Date: October 13, 2019 at 9:32:25 PM EDT
To: lgwilliamchapman
Subject: greetings

Fortunately they agreed to give me back my deposit and I have booked a trip to Ethiopia in January for 12 days and another one to Botswana in April for 16 days. I am also going to the Galapagos Islands in February. When Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier, Aristotle Onassis gave her as a wedding present a yacht and it is on that yacht that I will be doing my cruise for one week and it is limited to 16 persons. As such I will be spending 2 days prior to the cruise in Quito and 2 days on my return from the cruise in Guayaquil. In December I will be going for one week to Anguilla in the Caribbean and will stay at the 4 Seasons for R&R with my books.

I should be around tomorrow.

---------- Original Message ----------
From: pierre
To: Frida
Date: September 28, 2019 at 3:33 PM
Subject: greetings

My dear Frida,

In as much my trip to Israel was one of my best trips this present trip is no doubt one of my worst trips. I am the youngest member of the group as they are all in their mid 70's to mid 80's and they are all diehard birdies. This trip should have been advertised as a birdie's paradise trip. Further I did not get along at all with the expedition guide, Mark. To make things worse he is the one who will be the guide on my trip to Sri Lanka next March. As such please let me know how much of a deposit I have made for that trip because if you do not let me get out of that trip and refund me my deposit either Mark or I will or both will kill each other if I have to go on that trip to Sri Lanka.

At least now in Cartagena it is wonderful and very pleasant and the hotel is superb. The other hotels were horrible. Imagine in the Amazon we spent 3 days in a hotel with no hot water and for the first 2 days there I had no electricity in my room and I had to share the washroom with someone else and we were required not to put any toilet paper in the toilet. As for the food it was that which would have been served to fruit pickers....

**********

When time is running out - and we really never know when it will unless it already has - the matter how to spend what remains is of interest. I tend to characterize the issue as logic; that is, drawing a conclusion from given parameters. Though my mathematical tincture is less than potent - having as it does the appearance of necessity to reach a certain end - I am similarly dedicated to a fruitful outcome. I may even say the aim is artistic. The importance of the observation is that by design it focuses upon expression. Material realities for example cannot be ignored.  By the same token it is often too easy to overlook the dynamics of what is at hand.

I have prepared for my diminishing future by distilling what capital I have in hopes of extracting the purest refinement and what is aesthetically pleasing. This naturally entails condensing what is available. It is this boundary which defines the scope of activity. For some this may equate to limitation - which I suppose is true by definition - but I nonetheless prefer to see it as a dissection of current detail, the result of which is unimagined discovery. This heady purpose has almost the persuasion of religious conviction. The reality however is far more visceral. Long ago the hope of elongating my native strengths has evaporated. Instead I have confined myself to the exploration of what already exists. Surely there is nothing more contemplative! It is a slight to demean the undertaking as purely selfish absorption. It may on the other hand be fashioned an economic means of travel.

Thankfully I have always been able to savour creative skill from afar. The accidents of my upbringing and profession are for me cherished opportunities. Within those experiences the places I have gone and the people I have met afford me an incredibly rich ornamentation of thought, word and personal expression. To a degree it is vicarious pleasure. But for me it is a proxy by which I am pleased to exist.

“The world is a book. Those who do not travel read only one page.”

"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering."

Saint Augustine