Between Stone and Sky

Description:

"Whitney Brown was midway through her Master's thesis and on the verge of accepting a job as a curator at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington when a chance meeting with a Welsh dry-stone waller at a folklife festival changed the course of her life. Within weeks Whitney had left behind her secure world in the States and was living with him in rural Wales, learning the craft of dry-stone walling. What started simply as a working holiday led to the swift and utter decimation of all of her previous life plans. She fell irretrievably in love with Wales and for what she found there - for stone, for the act of physical creation (and accompanying physical exhaustion), for life in the countryside and days spent working in the sanctuary of a lonely hillside to repair structures older than the country of her birth, for the endless string of characters she met through her work, for windswept valleys and low hanging clouds and chilly nights by the wood stove, and for a man 33 years her senior, much to her dismay. She had no choice but to trust these things and see where they might lead her. It was, after all, the first time in her life she'd ever truly felt at peace. She felt like she had finally got a glimpse of what life was supposed to be. Notes from a Welsh Hillside mixes Whitney Brown's extraordinary and inspiring life story with reflections on tradition, adventure, on working with one's hands, living close to the land and, ultimately, about love in all its many forms. It is a love story to Wales and its fascinating jumble of historical, cultural and ecological layers. Most of all, it is a story about feminine empowerment, learning to ask difficult questions, to accept uncertainty and risk, to ignore the prescribed rules and maintaining a healthy sense of wonder along the way." -- Provided by publisher.

subjects: Biography,  Stonemasons,  Women folklorists,  Dry stone walls,  Social life and customs,  Manners and customs