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Under Tony's direction a two-week long tour had been arranged for Ushi and me into the dessert regions of the southern USA. It was Fred's note of thanks for Ushi's help. My role in this was secondary. I was allowed to accompany her. Of course, knowing Tony, I wasn't surprised that the entire Air Force contingent in the area knew of our coming. Ushi's fame, based on her efforts to make the world a better place, preceded her. I, in comparison, was just her escort. Perhaps it was under Tony's 'orders' that, politely, nobody spoke about politics. Getting away from the political world had been the purpose of her holiday. In respecting her wishes, politics appeared to be a forbidden subject. We were treated like newlyweds instead, discretely, but affectionately. Maybe that's what Tony had told them that we were.
We stayed in remote hotels at first, camped a little. At mid-week a newlywed Air Force couple joined us who had a four-seat helicopter at their disposal. With that, we could go wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted, and the couple who had the chopper knew all the best places to be. We became a part of the family, so to speak, and apparently a part of the Air Force family as well. We were treated to life as it unfolded at the grassroots level where the games were easy, unlike at the diplomatic level, and full of fun and wide open for anything.
At one of the parties that we were invited to, Cathlynn, our newlywed bride, wanted to act out a fantasy that, as she confided to Ushi, "had come to her like a dark urge during her wedding party."
"Why don't you to act it out now, right here?" Ushi asked, interrupting her.
Ushi may have imagined what this dark urge fantasy had been. With a grin on her face she encouraged Cathy. It seemed safe enough to do that. Everyone had called her simply, Cathy, or Cath for short. Her full name, Cathlynn, had never been used by anyone there. She appeared to be 'family' to them all.
So it was that when the music tape had come to an end, Ushi stood up and said that she wanted to tell them all a story. She asked people to clear a space in the middle of the room. A table had to be moved, and chairs rearranged. She brought one of the children's high chairs from the kitchen and placed herself in the middle of the open space and told her story.
She told the story of a king. It was a king with a good heart who had received visitors one day from a far away land. The visitors were not royalty, nor philosophers, nor priests. One was a poet, another a composer and performer of music, another, a man of science, and so forth. They were traveling together to explore the beauty that can be found in being human. Rumors had it that wherever they went people became uplifted by their wisdom.
So it was that they came before the king. The king was pleased with their performances, their stories, and their wisdom. Later, during the royal banquet, on the night before their departure, the poet asked the king if he was happy being isolated from his people by his wealth. The king answered that he wasn't at all happy about it, but he was also unable to do anything to change that. He said that if he gave away all of his possessions, it wouldn't help many people and he would be as poor as the rest of them.
The poet agreed that this wasn't a workable solution. The musician, however, had an idea of how the problem could be solved. Both the poet and the man of science agreed that the composer's idea could work.
The composer had been told during his travels that there lives a man in the king's realm that has an exceptional ear for music, but that the man is poor and his musical instrument is of a poor quality. The composer suggested to the king that he should purchase a violin for the man, which he described as an instrument that sings the melodies of the heart. He told the king that such an instrument could be obtained in a foreign country at a price far above what the man could afford, while the king could afford it easily as a gift of love.
The king protested. He protested, because if he did this, the lineup of beggars at his door would be endless. He was sure of that.
The composer waved him off. He told the king that he should never present such a gift as a royal handout. If he did that, indeed, those problems would occur, but more than this, his gift would become tarnished. A gift becomes tarnished if it can be perceived as a means to bring the bearer of the gift, fame and honor. The composer suggested that the king should present the gift disguised as a traveler, as an ordinary man, and that he should bestow the gift in such a manner as would be necessary to assure the recipient that it is a gift of love. He said to the king that the gift would not be tarnished if it were accepted as a gift of love. Then it will shine.
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