Hawthorn Hill Journal by Richard deRosa
Donald and His Seven Cows
A few weeks ago in Glasgow, I was browsing about in a local bookstore looking for books by Scottish writers. Even though, like many people, I pack a few books when traveling, I invariably am drawn to local bookstores on the chance that I might stumble upon a gem or two.
I asked the nice person at the front desk where I might find books by Scottish writers. She directed me to a small room in a corner of the second floor. There were books on several shelves, but many were displayed on a small table in the middle of room. While circling the table checking out titles, one just really grabbed me: “Donald & His Seven Cows,” by Angus Peter Campbell. I just knew I had to have it.
The book cover, showing a man standing alongside a munching cow with the seaside in the distance, captivated me. I had to get to know Donald. I often buy books whose covers or titles intrigue me. And more often than not they have ended up being not only great reads but significant influences on the way I feel about myself and the world around me. Many have offered a clarity that I could not have come upon by myself. You know that a book has had a profound influence on you when even weeks later you cannot get Donald or his cows or his lovely goodness and honesty and kindness out of your mind.
Donald spends every day following his cows, led by Maisie, on their approximately one mile circular walk. This is what he does each and every day. Donald is both at home with himself and his life. As he walks, he thinks about all sorts of things and even imagines spending time with faeries who inhabit a standing rock that he passes each day and which also provides him shelter from the heavy winds blown off the sea. As he walks and often rests from time to time, he thinks about his life and life in general and displays a wisdom about existence that is both profound and refreshingly simple. It is wisdom shared from the heart, stated in plain, no-frills language. It’s thought in its purist form.
By the way, this ostensibly simple man has chosen this simple life after crewing on merchant vessels and tasting more of the world than most of us ever will. Donald, having chosen to spend his days on the road with Maisie and company, has pared life down to its barest yet profoundly liberating essentials. Unlike so many of us in today’s moving, competitive, consumer driven world, Donald’s only deadlines are of his own making.
Commenting on a painting of the sea by a local teacher, Donald is struck by the absence of any people in the painting. He says, “I suppose everyone wants a life free of bother. We know so little about anyone. They hide whole worlds.” We do indeed. There is so much we will never know about ourselves and others, even those we are closest to. We look at or see one another, but how much are we really able to see?
For Donald, “The only way to see a thing is by looking at it so well you can see what you don’t expect to see…And here’s the thing. You have to see everything before you see a single thing.” What Donald sees and contemplates on his daily walks is never the same. Every day is different, every day is thoughts and insights, new and old. Anyone who walks every day, especially if it is the same route day in and day out, knows how different each walk is. It is why walking, however thoughtless or thoughtful, is among the most invigorating things an individual can do. People like Donald may be alone most of the time, but they are anything but lonely.
I hope, as the case with Donald, that we never solve all the mysteries that life offers. It is far better, in many cases, to imagine a solution to a mystery than to add it to the list of ostensibly done deals. As Donald says, “…what others hear is a mystery to me…I am glad there’s still a place where mystery is the heart of the matter.” As I see it, even when we think we have solved a mystery, what is it that we really know? I suspect that all the research into the human heart will never reveal the mystery of its essence.
In responding to cowboy movies, Donald offers a perspective that pretty much sums up the predicament we find ourselves in all too often: “Either one side is rustling cattle or the other side is killing the rustlers. Or the cowboys are killing all the Indians, or the Indians are killing all the cowboys, and then they take revenge. Or there are fights to the death…Nothing is ever built up, anywhere corn or wheat or homesteads are built it’s always at the expense of some native or incomer who needs to be cleared.”
Sounds a lot like the world we live in, not to mention various escapades characterizing life in many places today.
Amazing what an hour’s browse in a Glasgow bookstore can turn up.
Dick deRosa’s Hawthorn Hill essays have appeared in “The Freeman’s Journal” since 1998. A collection, “Hawthorn Hill Journal: Selected Essays,” was published in 2012. He is a retired English teacher.
