“In Xanadu did
Kubla Khan
A stately
pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the
sacred river, ran
Through caverns
measureless to man
Down to a
sunless sea.”
-
from “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1875-1912)
We’re
all searching for our place of untold luxury, our Xanadu, and fewer
still ever come close to attaining such a place in their lifetimes.
It would be nice, wouldn’t it? A place of luxury, idyllic and yet
exotic, where we could indulge ourselves of whatever we desire.
Some
confuse Xanadu with Utopia. Utopia is a place of perfection in all
things, while Xanadu is a place of luxury, not quite perfect but
pleasing all the same. They’re easy to mix up because both are
equally unobtainable, and thus both are associated with a dream that
always remains beyond our grasp, tantalizing and frustratingly
impossible to achieve.
I've been to the place that is considered to be the actual Xanadu in Inner Mongolia. It is where Kubla Khan would vacation in the hot months. Today it is set up to look like one of his traveling villages including several pleasure-domes where he housed his concubines.
ReplyDeleteI am at Transformed Nonconformist. I usually write humor pieces, but I am getting serious this month. I'm writing about people who have deeply impacted my life.
While I have neither luxury nor perfection, my independence offers something pleasurable with a mix of sun and sea.
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