Travel Graces

Maybe we notice more, when traveling, what goes wrong and what goes well. For a trip such as the one I just took, alone on a walk in England, because I packed light there was less to keep track of. A tour company had made all the lodging arrangements. For the most part I forgot about ordinary life back home. All of this freed me to pay attention to the day's steps and missteps.

My suitcase arrived with the top of the pull handle broken off and missing completely. This meant I could pull it by one of the upright bars, and fortunately it had four wheels so I could pull it without tilting, which is pretty difficult without that cross bar on the pull handle.

On the second day of walking, the rain made it impossible to walk the full distance. I opted, about a third of the way into the journey, not to return to muddy field and forest tracks (my boots, socks, and clothing were completely waterlogged) but to walk on the road. Roads in the Cotswolds are narrow, curve a lot, and have no shoulders, so this was not a safe option, but I hoped perhaps someone would take pity on me, and someone did; Neville picked me up and drove me the five miles (by road, not by walking track) to Broadway, the town of my next lodging. He didn't live there but made the excuse that he needed to go to a shop there. Also, he needed to pick up his ironing. So I dripped all over his lovely car while he parked in front a house and a young women brought out his ironed clothing and waved at me. When he dropped me off in Broadway, I said, "Neville, you are today's angel" and he replied, "Well, I think you're a resolute young woman."

That first rainy day I discovered that I should have brought my hiking boots; the soles of my every-day boots would not navigate muddy terrain. So, in Broadway, once I'd checked in, gave the housemaid my soggy clothes to wash and dry--so grateful that service was available for a fee--I walked around town, not daring to hope I'd find a shoe store. Yet, one block from my B&B I found "Pairs," which sold hiking boots. The first pair I tried on were perfect, and the price was decent. So, problem solved. I must stress that not every town I stayed in had a shoe store, or not one so obviously placed.

My third night of the trip, I was staying in Chipping Campden, one of my favorite villages of the six on my route. But by that evening I had walked probably nine miles, was very tired, and felt a bit lonely for the first time since arriving in England. I decided to walk across the street to another inn, in which there was an Indian restaurant that did carry-out orders. While I waited for my order, sitting at one end of the room with my back to the other diners, I noticed a gentleman sitting down by himself over to my left, just a few feet away.

I will shorten this: the man was the British actor Mark Williams, who has many screen credits but would be best known by Americans as the Weasleys' father in Harry Potter, as one of the bumbling dog thieves in 101 Dalmatians, and most recently as the new Father Brown of the BBC series that's based on the mysteries of G.K. Chesterton. I've become a Father Brown fan, and of all the actors to see in person, Mr. Williams was the perfect one on that evening of a very long day. I did stop at his table, on my way out the door with my food, and asked if he was Mark Williams, and he answered in the affirmative, and we had a brief, friendly exchange during which I did not act like an idiot fan. However, I grinned like an idiot all the way back to my room and didn't even mind that the coleslaw had been packaged in a  plastic bag, forcing me to eat it with my fingers. Happy, happy.

Every day I walked--and that was five out of the six days (the fifth day I took the bus so that I would have plenty of time to hang out at the Cotswold Falconry Centre in the next town--a good decision)--every day I walked, something went wrong with the directions. Either the route notes were not clear or were inaccurate or I read them incorrectly or a landowner had messed with the markings so that hikers would stop walking across his property. Every day I got lost. And every day I managed to find my way. If you have a sense of direction, you cannot appreciate what a grace this was. I have absolutely no sense of direction, and the fact that I did not panic but simply solved problems and invented a new way--this is one of the graces of the trip I appreciate most.

Another grace: I cussed maybe twice on the whole trip. Anyone close to me understands that this was a freakin' miracle.

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Back Home

First of all, I had a truly wonderful time in England. No regrets, no bad memories, even though I was rained out one day and had a close encounter with mud on another. Little graces along the way--a topic for probably Tuesday's post. The point is, this was a good journey, one I planned and saved for and built up courage for and followed through on.

And came home from. I did return home, and when it was time to return, that's what I wanted to do. I had feared, just a bit, that some little gap or wound in my soul would find its answer or comfort off in England--in the beauty and quiet and fields, pathways, horses, cows, sheep, dogs, birds. What if I didn't want to leave? What if my personal sorrows wanted to stay for awhile and find their solace? What if I would desire to walk to a certain tea shop every day for the next five years, just to have tea and scones and sit in the quiet and talk with myself? What if that unfinished part of me, that unspoken-to part, would determine to make a new place and nurture a new ritual?

I am determined, now, to find a recipe for true English scones because I've not had anything here in the USA quite like the mile-high crusty wonders that call over to the little dishes of clotted cream and jam, saying, "Here I am!" I will find that recipe. I might even learn to make clotted cream, although this would work against my labors three afternoons a week at Southport Fitness. Still, for a rainy day or a sad afternoon . . .

I am determined to walk more here at home, now that it's clear that a few more miles of movement each day will not tear apart my arthritic joints. There's our glorious 18-mile lakefront. There are neighborhoods and bike/walking paths, parks and preserves. I'll make better use of them, and probably will bring my husband along.

It's good to be home. I brought England's weather with me, and the rainy week has turned our yard and garden spot into near jungle. I've walked in the rain to work, not minding it so much now that I have walked miles in downpour in a country where that is not considered an odd thing, just something you must do on some days. I sit on the back yard swing and enjoy the begonias and dalias and impatiens--their vivid blotches of color against the stone tile and foliage of many greens. I have returned to a place that I already loved, and so I love it still.

The stories we hear--or see in movie form--about people going off to find themselves, traveling in search of love and meaning, trouble me. It took me a few decades, but I understand that, at least for myself, purpose and happiness originate in my interior world. Other people and places cannot give me what I do not already experience. I could go on this journey and love the going because the home had already been built in soul and psyche. If I was content on the journey, it was mainly because the contentment had already developed in my thoughts and spiritual habits. If I was resourceful while walking, and able to solve problems and get lost and found again, I owed that grace to the habits that have been years in development--habits of hope, creativity, calm, and openness.

I highly recommend a walking trip, if you enjoy walking and would like a little adventure. But if you are desperate to find something that will change your life, I might recommend instead that you stay home and learn how to love home and uncover your true self in today's hours. And then in tomorrow's. The hardest work we do is the interior journey. It requires so much energy and courage and time that sometimes it is best done standing completely still.

Scattered Thoughts about England

I'm trying to work at my day job at the moment, although, according to my body, it's about 11 p.m. Feeling a bit guilty about not posting at least one other time while on my walking trip in the Cotswolds. I'll have more to say about that when I'm better rested. For now, a list of impressions.

When the English say "hill," that is precisely what they mean.

There's no real American equivalent to clotted cream.

Maybe it's my imagination, but orange marmalade tastes good in England.

Compared to getting on and off buses in England, Chicago's a freakin' roller derby.

Sheep watch you ever so soberly as you walk straight toward them.

Sheep do not pose for the camera. By the time you've lifted it up to snap a shot, they have realized that they don't know you and have gone trotting away.

Sheep dung has no smell that I noticed. English cow shit smells just like American cow shit.

Wildflowers flutter everywhere, and even the intentional flowerbeds look exuberant and unruly in a gorgeous kind of way.

People in the English countryside really are friendly and helpful.

However, an outsider in a local pub feels that she's an outsider.

England is green because it rains so much.

A hard soaking rain is called a "wet" rain, as opposed to a less aggressive and more pleasant rain, I guess.

There are a lot of doves in England--fat, lovely, sonorous doves whose robust coos can sound downright intimidating.

"Kissing gate" can mean any of several designs.

The English take their dogs into shops, cafes, trains, buses--and no one seems to mind.

Lots of Labrador retrievers and various spaniels, and dog rescue is a big trend.

What the English call a walk, Americans call a hike. I discovered this use of understatement pretty much every day of "walking."

If you are about to fall in the mud, do not grab onto stinging nettle to save yourself. It's named that for a reason. In my case, the points of contact were weird and tingly for almost two days.

Until you have experienced mud in the English countryside, you have no idea what I'm talking about.

First Walking Day

What an adventure. All day on the lookout for stiles, gates, footbridge, and waymarkers, not to mention "clear paths" across pastures. In this photo I have gone more than a quarter of the way. I am smiling because I am yet unaware that I have taken the wrong gate and thus have misdirected my journey. I will solve this later by climbing a steep hill because thank God the written directions include radio towers that are visible to

poor lost me.

No real writing because I don't care for screen keypads. Relaxing train ride to Cheltenham. Received a warm welcome from Rita, who with her husband runs Burlington House B and B. Photos of my comfy room. Walked miles this afternoon around town. Photographed with my camera so cannot upload to this device.

I must say, have concluded that I could eat clotted cream with a spoon every day. And probably will on this trip.

Another Reason I Travel

When I go to a new place, there is always this little dream that I will be a new person. This place, and these people, have never met me. They know nothing of my history or my shadow side. In this new place, I've never screwed up, made anyone angry, let anyone down, failed at a project, said something awkward,  made a bad entrance or exit.

There's always the hope that I will leave behind my irritating habits, my little obsessions, and my prejudices. Maybe I will arrive in this foreign place minus my fears and painful memories. Maybe here I will exhibit more hope and act more graciously.

We received Nala's ashes yesterday--Nala is the dog we had to euthanize two weeks ago--and I had to pack last night so did not open the box. But I did this morning, and I wept many tears for my Baby Girl and placed her on the shelf next to Buddy's canister of ashes. I held Little Buddha the cat and could feel the sorrow welling up. I'm sort of crazy to leave my good home for 10 days to go get lost in a strange place by myself.

I have the habit of touching the center of Jim's chest and saying to him, "This is my home." Because I have such a home, I am free to go do crazy things. And I do try to arrive at my destination as if this is a fresh place, a clean slate. But of course I am still me, and I bring the whole person on this ride. And although there's a lot I'd like to shake off my shoes--the mistakes and bad habits, things I wish I'd never said--I know you can't shake free of the history you don't like without losing bits of what you love.

So I travel to get a fresh start, much as I get out of bed every morning and consider that today I might be more merciful and less fearful, more courageous and less judgmental. There's an Old Testament verse I love that proclaims: "God's mercies are new every morning." I trust that this is true in the place I have worn smooth with my presence, this home of many years. I suppose it will be true as well off in England, where I hope to be walking very soon.

One Reason I Travel

I travel to get away from my stuff. I mean material stuff that requires upkeep, cleaning, sorting, improving, and putting away. It seems that forty percent of my time at home involves walking stuff from one room to another—dirty laundry to the basement and clean laundry back into drawers and closets; books back onto shelves; dishes to the sink or the cabinets; garden implements back to the shed. It fairly traumatizes me to explain in detail the long trail most paper travels in my house. Paper carries so much important information, and it is just so irritating to deal with. You have to read it, understand it, and respond in some way—pay the bill, call the number—and then you have to file the damn thing. Because if you don’t file papers, they have sex with one another and within days there are piles and piles of bastard papers, all over the house.

So, a travel vacation is a way to leave most of that behind. When I travel, I can choose which stuff I want to keep up with—and then leave the rest of it and not think of it at all while I’m away. That bowl that got left on the porch—it is not anywhere in my consciousness when I’m out to dinner in a fresh little town. The papers that remain un-filed and procreating—in my heart they are filed away in a dark place where there’s not enough light to read by. Thus they are unimportant, forgotten.

I used to take too much stuff with me when I traveled. You know—all the back issues of magazines I needed to read, the cards and letters I had yet to answer. I kid you not: I have on more than one occasion thrown all the paper into a grocery sack to read and sort on the passenger side of the car while my husband drove and tried not to engage with a wife intent on bringing all her office stress with her.

I used to haul a laptop everywhere and files of multiple writing projects I might suddenly return to—the novel whose plot problems I could finally diagnose, or the poetry I’d not felt compelled to edit seriously for the past decade.

Back when I was slim and enjoyed wearing clothes, I packed too many things to wear, because who knew what mood I would be in when we walked down by the river or went out to eat or took a tour? A person needed lots of options. Same goes for make-up and things that go with hair, and jewelry.

I’m about to be away from home for ten days. There will be no laptop, no magazines, no letters to answer, no paperwork to sort. Maybe I’ll take a book. I have three pairs of pants and five shirts, a jacket, the pair of shoes I’ll wear on the plane and the other pair of shoes I’ll pack, both pairs meant for walking. I cannot really express how jubilant I am about having so little stuff along. Of course, the journal goes, one I bought just for this trip, and two pens. One necklace bearing three bits of gold: a cross, an Arabic coffeepot, and my wedding ring (my hands swell, so I rarely wear the ring on my finger).

Half the reason I travel is to travel light.