Friend and Fog, Footpaths and Faith in Cornwall

Meet Julia. She's a shopkeeper, artist, extensive traveler, fabric master, and wisewoman of the world--a gem tucked away in a little shop of her own called JT Crafts, at the Mullion Craft Center at the bottom end of town. I had met her on Wednesday, during my milling-around-Mullion day, and liked her company and her product so much that I went back today for another visit and some shopping after buying my dinner fixin's.

She's originally from the east coast of the US, but her travels in France, Italy, and other countries have given her a cosmopolitan, European grace. She lives in Marazion, just across the water from that famous St Michaels Mount, and currently sells fabric bags and home goods that she stamps in colored paint using her own inspired designs. Her passion is artistic quilting. That's one of her quilts that she's standing in front of there.


I had a wonderful chat with her today about life changes and motion, and the success that comes when we take the opportunities that fall into our laps instead of forcing them to happen, or trying to figure them out. I know she's someone who will hold the vision of my falling into my own passion and taking it in as a career with ease.

While finding my passion and vision is the ultimate purpose of this trip, the idea was far from the top of my list today, which started out as a vague, miss-the-bus, out-of-whack-with-the-world's-time-clock kind of day. Vague on my planning, and not clear how I'm supposed to go through the day given the opening and closing times of the various businesses I wanted to go to.

Shopping was the goal, then call my bank, catch England's first World Cup football game at a pub this afternoon, finish shopping, go to the post office. A day of errands that required some coordination of lengthy back-and-forths to the cabin, bus stops, village shops.


All morning long I kept getting 20- to 35-minute openings that were too short to double-back on to do something else on my list, so I'd get busy on the phone or in a store waiting for the bus. I sat amid fragrant valerian in a Mullion cemetery for some quiet space and a good cell signal (the cemetery has the best mobile access here--go figure) and called BofA to extend the use of my credit card abroad for the next month. I think this is a pain to do monthly during the trip, but it does help protect the card from fraud.

Phone calls done, I missed the hourly bus to Lizard by the need for a toilet (it drove past just as I headed in) and nearly missed the next one while killing time making a miscellaneous purchase. I ran out of the shop leaving my little pile of goods on the counter. "There's my bus!"

I was baffled by this consistent tardiness (I'm usually many minutes ahead for transport while traveling) and soon realized why--weeks ago I had set my watch just a few minutes slower than local time, and it made a difference now that I was relying on punctual public transport. I reset it a few minutes fast for cushion time.

Got to Lizard expecting to do some local-crafts shopping and thought, "This is it?" Tourist shops every one of them, some tackier than others. Feeling bored and unfocused, I considered what I should do next with an hour or so before the next bus back to Mullion.

My feet started moving and I ended up again on the Southwest Coast path, this time going to Lizard Point, the southernmost end of the UK. The sea fog was thick today and the lighthouse was closed to public viewing so it could do the work it's designed for. The foghorn was shrill, sounding off every 30 seconds or so. When I was near the lighthouse, the blare was piercing and painful and startling through the silence. Away from it, it became background noise.


The cliffs at Lizard are marked everywhere as "Crumbling, Stay Clear." They nonetheless call walkers in, and the boulders of the cliffs are well trod.

I walked back to Lizard village only to--dang it all--miss the next hourly bus home by 5 minutes. Took solace in an ice cream--chocolate toffee, single scoop, plain cone--at a souvenir shop and chatted with the proprietor about cruising. He's done a lot of it with his wife and loves it.

It was muggy today, overcast, with only a bit of direct sunshine earlier. The England-Paraguay football game was on the telly in the shop. England was ahead 1-0, from a goal scored by the opposition into their own net. I could relate to the situation.

My irritable, vapid mood was finally salvaged by yielding fully to what came my way. I gave up on The Plan and adjusted to what was available to do. I returned from Lizard, caught the shopping I had left behind at the sundries market, bought food for dinner, then went to JT Designs to purchase some gifts, and walked out feeling better for my chat with Julia.

At the cabin, I packed up goodies to mail to London--unneeded maps, gifts, stone bits I've collected for a mosaic to do with Tim and Cheri when I get back. Boxed it all up at the post office and sent it on its way while the postmaster and I talked about investment options for bonds and high yield savings accounts that UK residents can obtain at the PO.

The post offices here are mixed breed. In addition to being a stamp and mailing service, village POs are often a combination of financial planning venue, gift shop (bracelets, earrings, fair trade items from Africa, crystal chatzkas, statuary, etc.), grocer, and office supply store (pens, art supplies, children's books, postcards, gift wrap, cards). Something you might get if Hallmark and 7-11 merged with UPS and had a handshake deal with Merrill Lynch on the side.


All these tasks done and businesses closing, I felt unusually unburdened. I carried only a jacket, visor, and shoulder purse I bought in Penzance and walked the residential area beyond the post office. I headed down public access footpaths that crossed streets instead of fields (less chance of getting lost), then found a wonderful footpath (its step-up stone stile and entrance shown here) that edged a small orchard and led to a freshly tilled and planted field--a stark brown contrast to all the surrounding green.

I spent 20 minutes making a decent video of walking that hundred or so yards, climbing through two stiles and hearing the twitter of birds and the crunch of my boots on forest litter. Pretty cool.

I kept on following my nose and ended up in a gravel lane that looked private and like a dead end. A young couple pointed me to a lane filled up by rusting blue truck. "The path continues down there. They just replaced the stile. Then go straight across the horse field. You can't miss it."

Now the four simple words "You can't miss it" have, in the past, struck me into a panic. If something couldn't be missed when it came to directions, I was sure to circle around it eight times before I found it. And without an OS map here, I'm potentially walking blind when it comes to footpaths across fields.

Taking the cue to look for a new stile, I squeezed carefully between the truck and a feathering of stinging nettle and pressed on into an overgrown grassy trail. A horse gate hung a bit crookedly at the lane's end. Not the new stile, so I turned left along a faint trample of grass that edged the field fence.

The stile was indeed new--a gate, actually--and I passed through into acres of closely cropped grass with a few draft-size horses grazing many yards away--and no clear trail.

"Straight across" the fellow had said. But which way was "straight"? I couldn't see the other side of the field for the hill in front of me. Memories of getting lost as a six-year-old at a family camping park rushed in, and I nearly doubled back, acutely aware that I had only a vague idea that Mullion was somewhere to the left of me.

I got a grip on my confidence, took a bead on the gate, and aimed for a telephone pole halfway up the hill, where I again took my bearings and the chance to enjoy the pretty horses. Of course, out came the camera. Click.

Up came the brown-and-white piebald boy, walking leisurely, stopping at the second camera click, coming again, drawing the attention of a bay with a wide blaze and three white socks who came down from my left and kept the piebald from me with a threatening nip.

Another bay wandered up for a sniff and a scratch. I wanted to scritch them all, but decided not to. It was enough that they allowed me into their field, and I thought it best not to push the introductions, as well as to honor the code of public access--don't mess with the animals.

I struck out over the hill amid 20 horses that ignored me and tracked along the opposite hedgerow looking for another stile. No such one. Finally came upon a pipe farm gate that led to the concrete yard of Newton Farm--dairy cows and riding stable and self-catering holiday cabins.


A man was pushing a stroller through the bumpy stableyard; he was from Gloucester, and staying at the farm on a 3-week holiday. I asked him for directions back to Mullion (turn left on the road out of the driveway), reached a residential section where I asked for directions again from a family parked on a six-foot sofa on their front lawn, played with a white-pawed tabby cat that scampered up and rolled around for attention in the gutter, and entered Mullion on a back road into the cemetery that I'd visited earlier in the day.


Voila. My first successful foray into walking public paths by instinct and coming upon help every time I needed it. I won’t be giving up those maps I bought for the Coast to Coast walk any time soon, though.

"You are brave to be traveling alone for so long."

I've been hearing that frequently. From the postmaster in Mullion. From shopkeepers in Bath. From TTouch folks. From fellow diners at pubs like the Old Inn where I had dinner tonight. (I don't recommend the lasagna or garlic bread, but the fresh strawberries and cream are great.)

I don't see this trip as particularly brave anymore. It's what I do. I exist. I move around on the landscape. "Lovely planet, isn't it?" I want to say to people, as if commenting on the weather.

I think it's brave to wake up every day and go to work. I think it's brave to raise a family. I think it's brave to talk to strangers. I think it's brave to take life with ease when so many around us want to emphasize the struggle.

I'm on holiday for three months in a country that speaks basically the same language I do, that has similar climate, similar social structure, similar culture. Is that bravery? Yes, in its way.

Yet isn't what we call bravery in others a reflection of our own wishes and fears and seeing someone else face them? Sometimes all of us need wayshowers. Sometimes all of us are wayshowers, most often when we least expect it. Perhaps that's what I'm being when people label me as brave.

Long before I got on the plane for this trip, I purchased a yellow "Courage" band--like the kind that Lance Armstrong has made popular with his "Live Strong" slogan. I wore it for weeks, 24/7, because I needed the reminder in the days ahead of my trip. "Courage, dear heart," the Albatross Aslan whispers to Lucy as they circle the Dark Island, spiraling inward into a place of nightmare and no escape. The white light guides their course to safety.

Courage. I twiddled often with that bracelet weeks before the trip. Wore it in the shower. Reminded myself of it each time I went on a training walk in my new neighborhood of East Olympia. Then one morning I took it off. Didn't need it anymore.

A few days later, exactly two weeks before leaving, I was getting a bit scared and distracted again. I hadn't done any planning to speak of. Time was running out to read all the guidebooks I’d bought, to note all the places to go, the travel pitfalls to avoid, the Rick Steves-recommended hotels and restaurants. I didn't have a complete itinerary, only a few loosely defined regions to go to.

A familiar panic was trying to empty my ribcage and rattle around my heart cavity like a loose pinball. I sought guidance from angels, my guides, my intuition. Nothing. Too brain-locked to take it in.

Then at the dentist's, I spotted another rubber bracelet in the parking lot. Purple. A bit folded and dirty. I almost ignored it. Couldn't. Turned it over. "Courage."

I laughed and wore that one for the next two weeks. It's now wrapped around my floral thermos that I bought for the trip at Starbucks because I liked its happy spring colors.

Courage. Yes, I suppose so. The courage to hear and follow intuition in the face of all opposing reason. The courage to stop pretending to be scared, separate, unguided, unable, not ready.

"Three things to never say," stated a recent Yogi tea bag tag: "I can't. I'm not ready. I don't know."

Every day I am ready for all that awaits me. I was ready that day two weeks ago to take a 25-pound pack six miles, even though I'd never done it before. I was ready a few days ago to pass between heathland cows on the Southwest Coast path. I was ready today to cross a pathless field for the first time, not knowing what waited on the other side. Small fears. Small successes.

I face each day knowing that all time and events that have come before have prepared me for everything that awaits this day.

If this is courage, then, yes, I am courageous. I am ready. Aren't we all?