The Guestbook
Once, in the northern part of the Cairngorms forest in Scotland, there was a castle, a house named Newe after the family that lived there.
There were balls and hunts and days spent ice skating outdoors. The castle walls had small alcoves in them, where fires could be lit to heat the stones, allowing peaches to grow on trees that hugged them.
For over one hundred years, visitors left records of their time there in a book: photographs, drawings, signatures, stories.
And while the castle no longer stands, the guestbook is still being filled.
When I was asked to sign it, I felt the weight of all the years on me. I am no artist, so I gave the only thing I could: my words. I wrote of how everything I encountered there spoke another language: the trees, the fields, the mountains, the stones. I wrote of how often they speak and how I was just beginning to understand.
Even now returned, I am still just beginning to understand.
{photographs taken by me}
Wow, people left those sketches in the guestbook? That’s truly incredible
Wow. That is an incredible guestbook. I cannot believe those pictures, and sketches, and all that history packed into that book.
Seriously the best find in Scotland. A gem of history! I love that you wrote from your heart so deep it took you until now to understand it. Perfectly said.
Wow! That is incredible and beautiful. What a magical find!
What an honor to be a part of such an amazing piece of history!
Wow, how incredible to be able to hold so much history in your hands and to be able to add YOUR own story to it for others to experience for many years too! Really, really awesome!
Wow! This is the most amazing guest book I’ve ever seen!
this could be a screenplay.
They lite fires in the walls to heat the building?! Ingenious!
Where is the guestbook located? Like a museum?
what an amazing feeling it must be to know that words from your heart are now forever a part of the history of this magical book, and this magical place.
xox