There are places, near or far, that are in our “emotional atlas“. They arouse indescribable emotions, that creep into our soul and remain there forever. These are the places where we take refuge, that we reach every time every other corner of the world feels a bit too small for us. These are the places to which for some reason we feel ancestrally connected.
The compass of our heart’s place in the world points to John o’Groats, Scotland.
John o’Groats, in Scottish Gaelic language “Taigh Iain Ghròt”. It’s located in Scotland’s extreme north-east, in the county of Caithness and from here you embark for the Orkney Islands. It is defined as the northernmost point of the United Kingdom, even if, in reality, this is Dunnet Head.
Rational atlas: who was John o’Groats?!
John o’Groats or rather Jan de Groot, was a Dutchman who lived between 1400 and 1500. According to a legend, in 1496 King James IV commissioned him to take care of the ferry that connected Scotland to the newly acquired Orkney Islands.
Jan set the price of the crossing at 2 pence and so that coin was called “groat”, even if in reality it had already existed for two centuries! He built an octagonal house where the hotel stands today, which has retained the same shape. There are eight doors, one for him and one for each of his children, and the dining table was also octagonal, so no one sat at the head of the table.
The symbol of John o’Groats is a sign showing the distances from some of the UK’s main destinations and beyond. Land’s End, in Cornwall, stands out. To John o’Groats it’s a sort of British coast to coast, the longest car journey you can make in the UK.
Emotional Atlas
Kilometers and kilometers of car and at a certain point there it is. The end and the beginning of the world, the last piece of land that overlooks the ocean’s immensity.
Space that extends to infinity, an infinity that stuns and embraces at the same time. An unknown infinity of which you immediately feel a part, an infinity that passes through you, that throws its beauty in your face made of gusts of wind and rain that alternates with the sunset’s tangible red. And a sense of freedom. A point where you close your eyes and feel pierced by existence, with that mix of pain and melancholy.
Here it is as if it were possible to abandon sadness, throw it sheer into the ocean and watch it drown forever. A handful of colorful houses that welcome you with their windows overlooking that brazen and harsh beauty that moves you, on the roars that shake the soul and lull it.
A secret passage to the unknown
You could spend your life like this, with your nose and hands resting on the windows of a house and your eyes dreaming like children do, observing the perfection of the flight of a bird that passes by every now and then or the clouds that move, dancing quickly in the sky to form stories of wizards, dragons, witches or simply of what they represent.
There is nothing here, a handful of houses with glass windows and a Van that sells Fish & chips.
There is nothing here, a full nothing that fills every corner of the body and heart. Nothing that is not essential. It is like a treasure chest, a magic music box that enchants you with its hypnotic melody, a secret passage to the unknown, a connection with an alternative universe, our place in the world.
Do you also have a place in the world that will remain forever in your heart?!