A tight winding route gripped massive liquid bodies to my path. I gave no thought to the path. This voyage was just work, a meeting to gather in the flesh, the hum of the quotidian a familiar drone modulated to a slightly altered frequency.

Toronto to Pennsylvania, from the north of Lake Ontario to the south of Lake Erie. Only vague awareness of arrivals and departures with a prescribed destination into the machine and instruction to Go There. No consideration to all that may be between two points. Technology would program the path, the music, leaving only the path of time yet necessary to bring me to Erie.

Tech can provide the route, but chance is the superior tour guide. It likewise requires little effort and does a better job of presenting the path than concentrated effort. The one need is to be open to be led, and to really see what unfolds in front of you. That is the hard part, to just let go. Open eyes and open heart, looking for truth and accepting every shard of beauty that comes your way.

Between departure and destination existed the New York of my travels. The north-west: a New York that often goes unconsidered, outweighed by the gravity and noise of the east. Trees and rolling hills and vistas offer the calm of nature, peace of space, and shift entrenched burdens and niggly details that take territory that is not theirs despite the fervour of their claims.

This was the prelude to chance’s programme. The pleasure of nature’s dominance, its insistence with every portion of road passing. The duration a meditation, visual repetition, a chant of nature, persistence of the most gentle sort. Little sign of anything beyond, until there was, just one: the sign to Chautauqua.

Chautauqua. My heart boomed and crumbled at the sight of this one word, of this one place, that dredged back to when summer’s event too horrible and too long feared came to be. It was by reason of this happening that Chautauqua is a name I learned, for all the most wrong and too terrible reasons.

Those reasons being that a man wrote a book and another man said he should die. Then a boy, ever so many years later put a knife into the first man many many times, despite having been born ever so many years past the time that the second main had rattled off his death wish for another, before winning the lottery of fortune and dying by the hand of nature in old age, leaving incitements to any hand of violence to usurp nature’s authority on an author’s days and through a coup of hatred deprive him of life, and us of him.

I regret that this is how I know the name of this place, that I know Chautauqua first as the location where Salman Rushdie was brutally attacked. Despite it having history and purpose worthy of knowing that precedes, and will succeed this.

Though when news of the attack came to be I did not think of the place. Indeed, I thought nothing. Only felt. A boulder of sorrow, rushes of anger at the needlessness and injustice, undercurrents of disappointment that a fellow human would choose this act. And a fervent hope that Mr. Rushdie would survive and thrive.

One thought surged forward now, as this one green panel juxtaposed itself among the repetition of trees to introduce violence onto the placid scene and perforate this insistent, sustained beauty. The one thought was simple. Simple, but not easy. Only this: how could he have done it?

At all, but especially here, in the continued rolling ease of nature. I experienced the sloughing off of rough edges with every mile, easing into softness as the path opened and eased before me. He would have travelled these same roads, looked upon this with his eyes, would have passed this time in the same way. Like any other being he must have had thoughts, and reflections, and musings as time and space passed. We can surmise what those were. We can likely make relatively accurate guesses based upon his actions. What blocks me from understanding is why the softness of nature did not act upon the stone within to erode it gently into something more malleable and tender.

Are we really that different, or is our humanity not as universal as we sometimes hope it to be. We do all struggle and our struggles my hold variance, but surely the spectrum is shared and commonalities abound to allow for connection, sometimes even understanding. Kindness to life, and self, and other can sometimes be difficult – very difficult, even. Sometimes we carry stones in our heart that weigh it down and keep kindnesses from rising to meet us. But paths can bring beauty into our personal orbit to dissolve stones away and reveal spaces for that which is the best of us and the greatest in us. For this, sometimes we need to stop along the road and meander down the unexpected sign and pause.

So I took a that small detour to Chautauqua. I wanted to fully follow the same physical path as the boy, to try to understand how the path of intention could diverge so drastically. Or at least to explore that piece I am missing that keeps me from understanding. And, merely to offer homage in my own way. Something in my power and before me to do that is symbolic for a strange circumstance when I would have liked to have done anything of consequence that was concrete and meaningful but had no such option before me. But symbols are important too, we should not discount them. They are our guideposts after all and will take us to the places we need to go, just as the unanticipated sign to Chautauqua brought me here.

With respect and a snippet of artifice, the only mention I offered to Chautauquans when they greeted me with such warmth as to inquire as to the reason for my visit was curiosity. Simple desire to see the place. I took care to express to these lovely people that beauty and reputation drew me here. Indeed, that was a part. Though it was the balance of this, and the violence, and the space in between of the strange story how these two coexist here, or anywhere that was the intention I wished not to reveal.

The motive was not artifice, but to give any shield I had to offer from having this association thrust upon this place, these people. Mr. Rushdie never sought to be known for all that has been foisted upon him. It must be more than annoying that often his existence and contributions as a writer are ousted from the foreground. I imagine the residents of Chautauqua must too, resist the existence of a place that was created with such love and intentionality being eclipsed by an interloper’s act of violence.

The great thing about seeking anything is that you are never quite sure of what you will find. To stumble upon serenity is often a revelation. The occasional circumstance may bring it to our being for a moment or for a time. In our striving, we may be duped by the simulacra that we hold dear, or cling to out of necessity, and only realize once we hit upon the purity of the real thing that truly we held nothing at all. Serenity, every so often a place, gives us opportunity to bathe in our being and breathe our existence fully, without the drudge and grind that toils upon us so persistently.

This is Chautauqua. Serenity, but serenity with intention. The feeling of the place is the overriding feature, before structures, before ornamentation. These exist secondary to deep layers of quiet, nestled by the blooms of nature that flourish the viridity of air, to propagate the scent of verdure and to blanket the assemblage completely. The sounds is a quiet of many layers, the breeze soft, the air gentle, the calm permeating without insistence.

I stood and looked at trees. Friggin’ bucolic is the description that comes to mind. I don’t think I could be angry here if I tried. Not on my worst day, not in my worst moment, not as my worst self of with all the darkest parts magnified and put on display. Not just me – anyone, how could anyone be here and not experience peace. We may not speak of our anger as we speak of our love, but it is a constituent ingredient of our human existence all the same, and just as universal.

I carry it and so do you. Understanding this is part of understanding what it is to be human, but it gets me no nearer to understanding the impetus to violence. Not for any reason, not for any idea, and certainly not for a bad idea and hateful intention. Not for destruction of a force of creation. Not for the lack of humility, the absence of consideration that perhaps despite our deepest held conviction, perhaps there are pieces we do not know or understand. Not for the big reasons of simple humanity, or the simple reasons of simply having better things to do with your time. Maybe, after all, anger is not the root of violence, and it is something else entirely. Whatever that something else is, is far beyond my understanding.

I wandered further. Leaves crunched. The season had changed since that August day when these same leaves would have been lush in a canopy above before enveloping the path with crisp cover below. My feeling was the same, and so remained the same as the years passed and would remain as the seasons continued to cycle. Nature shifts, but truth is constant, and constant is this: that it matters, it matters so much, it mattered then and it matters now and it always did and always will.

When it came, on a Valentine’s Day in 1989, I was in my youth and that pronouncement on the life of Salman Rushdie somehow shook me. Though I could feel that what was happening was so important I did not understand. I watched, and listened, and I thought understanding would come with any wisdom that experience may bestow upon me. But the more I seek the less I understand why, those doing the pronouncing could feel such certainty. That for any reason at all, or for any reason specifically, like a passage in a book they had not read and would likely not have understood had they dared to enter the world of ideas and challenge themselves with the most basic act of human curiosity, that the arrogance of certitude could lead to even the thought of a violence on a man and violation of a human ideal of expression.

It is quiet on the stage. I am rather taken aback that I am here. It was a surprise to end up in Chautauqua; even more unanticipated that I would be able to walk onto the stage, to look out to the audience of no one, to stand in that spot where it happened. If it could happen here, it could happen anywhere. Good people overtook the attacked. How did the feeling of this place not overtake him first to introduce softness into his heart and slough away the hardness of his actions?

If I repeat myself, it is because I cannot let go of this idea. There is something important here.

Critically, all this it goes beyond expression of a view – which is of itself abhorrent. The threat was always real. These people do not operate in metaphor or symbolism. That takes too much effort and the hassle of nuance and higher-level cognition. And now, they have put their knife into him. Sure, it was one of the fanged mass who did the act and the perpetrator has been named and charged and will be held to account, as much as once can for such a crime.

But the ground was laid by others who whipped up a frenzy based upon man-made realities of religion and identity - as though these concepts justify putting a real knife into a real man. Or justify upending his life. Or indeed, taking any of our airtime away from creation for their nonsense. Will they be held to account? Of course, they will not. Not fully. Not properly. Not as they should.

The very concept of literature is not understood by these wretches – not the way we understand it. Nor the concept of art, artistry, creation, exploration. Visit the homes of these cretins and look for a shelf of books. You will not find it. Look in general for books. You will not find them. You will find one, couched in the argument that one is enough. Never understanding those of us who, if we do not ourselves engage in the activity of creation, admire those who do and benefit from it so richly. We are a disparate bunch, but a bunch likely to agree as a whole that if you don’t have too many books, you don’t have enough. If you have only ever read one book, you do not know the value of another.

In Chautauqua, they value books. The tiny place has trees, and cafes, and bookshops. And they explore art, and ideas, and an intentional way to live as community. They have messages on posts in front of their homes that say May Peace Prevail on Earth, in English and in many languages. They have a fountain in the square with a monument to honour music, art, knowledge, and religion. And they invite authors to speak so that they might listen. There are lessons in this, foremost among them that this way is possible if only we choose it. We build our lives with our own hands, what and how we build is up to us.

Did my travels or diversion or rambling musings at all give me peace or resolution? No. Not at all. Not to the question of why. Not to the question of how it is possible for this hatred and destruction to exist when confronted by the continuous insistence of love, and beauty, and creation, and all the possibilities of all that is and could be.

It did provide confirmation of what I already knew, what most of us already know, that we need to keep confirming and keep remembering, and perhaps commit to knowing and living more deeply still. That to be in this world fully it is not to destroy but to build, and build with love and brilliance and courage and an insistence that we will not relinquish all that we hold so dear, like art in all its forms – not only but especially when it shakes us. After all that is what it is for. We should expect and even demand to be shaken every once in a while.

But on universal principles we stand firm, unshaken. On truth, we will name things for what they are; on what is right we are enduring; on what we hold dear our devotion remains ever pure.

We seek no fight but if the fight comes to our door, the battle is ours for as long as is necessary. But that is the point: none of this had to happen. It is only because this is so terribly serious that we forget that this is an unnecessary circumstance created by silly people long ago. An edict that rightfully should have been dismissed by all for the piffle that it was and is, with the only response a rejection of any effort to diminish those universals that are indisputable and cherished, revered.

An issue that should have been quickly dealt with and forgotten was not, and it comes raging back. Or rather, we have horrifically been reminded in the most terrible that it never left. We have been living with it all this time. We knew it was there. As it appeared quietened, did we quieten too? Did we accept it as white noise in the background, too easily forgotten Regardless, it is loud now, and we need to be as loud as was always necessary.

Our peace can be forceful. Our love can be imbued with power. Our creativity can conquer any force that may seek to impede us; our vision can be our guide. Art and beauty will be our fortress and armour and provide sanctuary for all that we hold dear.

Vow to make some noise.

Basia Puszkar is a writer and international relations specialist based in Toronto, Canada. Basia has been published in national Canadian publications on political theory and culture, and internationally on matters of political philosophy. Basia is also a poet and lover of music, literature, and the arts.

@basiapuszkar