My Books

  • John Donne (my best)
  • Shakespeare
  • Anything by Terry Pratchett
  • Lord of the Rings
  • The Little White Horse
  • Wind in the Willows
  • Secret Garden

Friday, 9 December 2011

Things of beauty

I was very blessed - I had an eye for beauty in all its shapes and guises for a very young age - I guess as a result of being a permanent appendage on my mother and Desmond. I went where they went, read the same books and was not so much introduced to beauty as surrounded with it in its all its physical form and metaphysical forms.

There were always beautiful people around and art and sculpture and silk. I accepted beauty as a mundanity - it was part of my childhood just as much as the bustees and refugees were.

The most beautiful man I ever saw was Lennie Dorje on a trip to Bhutan, when he arrived as we sat round a fire pi - he was dressed all in red and carried pistol at his side. ( This was only a short time since his brother Jigme had been assassinated. I was all of 9 or 10 and something inside me went WOW! His beauty was tempered be the threat of danger that surrounded him and although I was sent to bed early I know they stayed up into the night drinking and playing cards. I think you could say that glamour had entered my life and I loved it.

Tahctzung or Tiger's Nest is must see adventure if you are a visitor to Bhutan and we were duly taken part way by donkeys and climbing on foot. The monastery is high over the Pairo valley and when we visited it was a tranquil place. Desmond found an old lama whose window framed the most perfect view for meditation, a valley, mountains and a river. It was inspirational and to this day I have only to close my eyes to see it. It was beautiful.

I suppose I was about 14 when the penny dropped that I was not beautiful, at least not on the outside - it was hard for awhile but I tried to beautiful on the inside to make up for it. I suppose that was when I realised that I had been given a great gift; not being beautiful myself I could treasure it in others. I'll tonight with a little Leonard Cohen at the Chelsea Hotel - both he and Janis Joplin forgot their beauty was in there music, their voices and their poetry of song.


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