Esme Nicholson, Jakie Lay /NPR
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly collection wherein NPR’s worldwide staff shares moments from their lives and work all over the world.
If I might had my microphone with me, you’d hear the intense coloratura of willow warblers and chiffchaffs, the resonant mezzo counterpoint of blackbirds, the gentle rustling of leaves within the breeze and the odd jumbo coming in to land at Heathrow — the sounds of the Thames valley and the reassuringly acquainted soundtrack to my childhood summer time afternoons, minus the roar of Concorde jets.
This peaceable setting is a mature woodland within the making, tucked upriver away from the fray of the capital. Additionally it is a burial floor, the place interred ashes fertilize the soil wherein younger oak and beech timber develop. Sitting at this bench, I’ve been considering the place house is after years of dwelling abroad — a query that many worldwide reporters ask themselves after a beat or two.
The reply isn’t brief, nevertheless it strikes me how having the ability to return to see household is the privilege of peace, even as soon as they’ve handed. It’s the privilege of having the ability to take depart of family members and afford them dignity. As colleagues — far braver than I’m — witness how the horrors of struggle take many hundreds of lives and deprive households of having the ability to mark their deaths correctly, I’m conscious of how fortunate I’m to have this bench underneath a cathedral-like cover of timber to which I can return repeatedly.
See extra images from all over the world:
- Greetings from Guhagar, India, the place newly hatched turtles get some assist into the ocean
- Greetings from the Negev desert, the place traces stay of a vanished historical civilization
- Greetings from the Dubai airport, the place a protracted layover may also be a vacation spot
- Greetings from Paris, the place you may swim within the Seine for the primary time in a century
- Greetings from Gujarat, India, the place a banyan tree is a spot for relaxation, prayers and play
- Greetings from Khartoum, Sudan, the place these with the least supply their friends probably the most
- Greetings from Moscow, Russia, the place Lenin’s tomb attracts a brand new surge of holiday makers
- Greetings from New Delhi, India, the place performing monkeys spark delight — and ambivalence
- Greetings from Damascus, Syria, the place a crowded bar welcomed post-Assad revelers
- Greetings from Alishan, Taiwan, whose purple cypress forests supply timeless magnificence
- Greetings from Odesa, Ukraine, the place a Black Sea seashore affords respite from struggle
- Greetings from Shenyang, China, the place employees type AI knowledge in ‘Severance’-like methods
- Greetings from Palmyra, Syria, with its once-grand resort named for a warrior queen
- Greetings from Mexico Metropolis, the place these canine experience a bus to and from faculty
- Greetings from the Galápagos Islands, the place the blue-footed booby exhibits its colours
- Greetings from Afrin, Syria, the place Kurds danced their hearts out to have a good time spring
- Greetings from Dharamshala, India, the place these Tibetan children had been having one of the best time
