When I read my bike over some of the rolling hills that surround my neighborhood, I often think about my aunt Jeanne.  It was Jeanne who introduced me to the art of Paul Gaugin.  Over twenty years ago, she and my mother traveled to Chicago to take in an exhibit of his work at the Art Institute.  I'm so happy she did.  Today, Gaugin is most well known for his depictions of the people of Tahiti, the island on which he spent his later years.  These paintings depict another world, a world very different from the frenetic world of the West, a world of rest and leisure, openness and unconstructed possibility, a world which people do not try to shape for their own ends, but a world they allow to speak to them.  And from which they learn.

     

    To let the world be as it should be.
     

    The freneticism of the West often blinds it to what life really is:  a gift from God.  A gift not to be taken lightly.  And as I continue to ponder the arduous backpack I just completed, I think even more about the enormous amazing gift life is:  boldness, fragility, glory.

     

    Thanks, Monsieur Gaugin, for helping us see beyond our cultural ken.  Happy trails.