Winged Hearts and Other Weird Moments

Today was another Twilight Zone day, in which I kept feeling like I've been here before, have lived in this region in another lifetime. Especially at today's destination, Drumlanrig Castle.

The weather turned cloudy as I rode the 246 Stagecoach bus to the castle. Gray, heavy air that made the green hills look greener than usual. The bus drops visitors off on the main road out of Dumfries, about 1.25 mi from the castle. The paved drive in passes through a thin forest like many I've seen in the Pacific Northwest; I recorded some lovely morning birdsong here.


The forest opens into bridge over a river and then sheep fields and follows a long straight drive to the castle, with more forests around the north side of the house. Acres and acres of property.

Drumlanrig (meaning "hill long ridge," describing the estate's land) has three family names associated with it. The most well-known is Douglas, Duke of Buccleuch (buuk LAY). Specifically James Douglas, a close friend of Robert the Bruce, king of Scots in 1329. This was the time of the Crusades, but Robert the Bruce, who always wanted to go on a Crusade, died before he could leave. In steps friend James, Duke of Buccleuch, who carries The Bruce's embalmed heart into battle in his name. (Embalming and toting around hearts seems to have been the order of the day.)

The combat didn't go well for the duke, who, on receiving a mortal wound, is said to have flung the boxed heart ahead of himself into battle and yelled, "Forward, brave heart!" The cry of "Forward" continues as the family motto, and the Buccleuch line adopted a particular symbol--a winged heart with a crown--as its family motif. (This "brave heart" is not the same one as in Braveheart the movie. That was depicting Wallace, another Scot just a little earlier than Robert the Bruce, who helped bring about The Bruce's rise through his own efforts at rebellion against the English.)

I toured the home, which like most estates here is stuffed from baseboards to rafters with centuries-old furnishings, astounding artwork and portraits, figurines and cabinets and clocks and mirrors and candelabra and other treasures from all around the world. This one houses a Rembrandt, Old Woman Reading, which is marvelous to see in person.

Everywhere at the estate are images of the winged, crowned heart: woven into wool carpets, carved along stone eaves, etched into fireplace woodwork, worked into candlesticks, tapestries, and upholstery.

The guided tour starts and ends near a tea room--a converted kitchen, still housing some of the old cabinetry and pots. Their celery/potato soup and fresh-made organic bread makes for a welcome lunch break. Shopped at the gift shop and at the stableyard-converted-to-craft-stores, buying some yummy orange-cranberry jam and crunchy mustard for Norman and Jean. Also got a major-garlicky, melted buttery still-warm focaccia-like roll to eat in hand as I wandered into the onsite wildlife interpretive center.

Much of the Drumlanrig acreage is wooded, so it's a natural site for wildlife viewing. They've installed a forest blind where I watched native red squirrels ("SQUEER-ells" here) and lots of birds at the feeders--titmice, siskins, woodpeckers, finches.

An on-staff woman ranger and a local fellow--over 6' tall, late 40s, with multiple silver piercings in his nose and lips, clown-red hair, tattoos, a tan, and leather jacket--helped me ID some feathers I'd found and photographed earlier in the trip. Magpie and wood pigeon. We got to talking and they treated me to the last cup of coffee at the stableyard snack bar (where the gingham-covered tables are set up in former horse stalls), which was closing for the day.

I had spent much of the day at Drumlanrig, and got back to town in enough time to check out Internet access at the library--two hours per day free with a temporary library membership, plus lots of computers to use. Score. Set up an appointment for tomorrow.

Closed the evening off with a lovely Italian pizza dinner with a friend named Anja who lives near Dumfries. She's a German import into Scotland whom I met at the TTEAM training a few weeks ago in Farmborough. The restaurant she recommended was popular and way crowded, so we had a drink beforehand at a local pub. Lots of laughs, and over our pizzas (mine with anchovy paste, no less), she explained the nuances of World Cup scoring and football rules with great knowledge and humor. You can even ask me what offsides means, and I could explain it!

And the Twilight Zone moments today? They piled up as I walked Drumlanrig. I've been using a winged heart as part of my signature on cards and letters for a few years, yet have never consciously known of its connection to this place. Hmmmm. The tea room at the castle is in an old kitchen, maybe the 1800s part of the house. I felt a strange flash of recognition upon walking in, as if I had once worked there. Hmmm. Last night's nearly fruitless search for a pub ended me up on Buccleuch St, at Robert the Bruce, direct connections to Drumlanrig. Hmmm. At the craft store of one painter in the castle's stableyard, I saw stacks of canvases, all turned away to the wall. My eye fell on the only canvas with a title written on the back: "Sense of Belonging." Hmmmm.

Coincidences? Synchronicities? Past-life overlaps? Collective memories? Fertile imagination? Selective attentiveness?

Whatever I call it, there's a theme at work for me in the Dumfries area, and I'm not doing anything consciously to create it. The best I can do is acknowledge and accept it and tell my rational mind to be quiet, already. As Hamlet has said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I'll leave it at that.

Déjà vu at Dumfries

OK, time to turn on the Twilight Zone music. If you're not into believing in past life experiences or weird reactions to surroundings, stop reading now, or you might begin to question my sanity.

This morning I planned to visit Sweetheart Abbey (yes, I admit it, purely for the romance of its story about its lady founder who is buried with her beloved's heart) and got a later start than planned because of my wandering feet and a sense of déjà vu that continues to tug at my sleeve everywhere I go today.

Coming into Scotland has tapped some deep visceral responses. On the train ride from Carlisle to Dumfries yesterday, I heard my first conversation of this trip in a Scottish brogue, and my whole body responded--an expansion in my heart and ribcage, and a buzz through my body that lasted for a minute or so. We had crossed into Scotland by this time, and the Scottish lilt wrapped like barely-remembered music around my ears.

This morning I wandered into the Robert Burns Centre (RBC) on my way to find a bus to Sweetheart Abbey. Much of Dumfries' identity is related to Burns, who is Scotland's literary son in the way that Shakespeare is England's. But while Stratford-on-Avon turns Shakespeare into pure tourism (from what I recall years ago), there seems to be real adulation here--his constant but low-key presence is manifest in a street named after him, annual events held at his belatedly-created tomb, signs at the places where he lived or frequented, a monument in the center of town, only one Robert Burns store. Dumfries comes across more like a Burns pilgrimage site than a Burns tourist attraction.

Discovering Burns here in Dumfries has also brought me full circle in a way I hadn't anticipated. I visited his birthplace in Alloway on my first trip to the UK in 1978, and here I am almost 30 years later, spontaneously visiting the town where he spent his last nine years.

I was the first and only customer as the doors to the RBC opened at 10a, and had the movie theatre to myself to watch a film about Burns' life. The video began with images of the Dumfries area and Scotland, and tears came to my eyes--grief, joy, yearning. This land is so lovely; how can I be missing it so much, even though I haven't lived here? I stayed a long time at the centre, reading all the placards about Burns, looking over all the artifacts. This is unusual for me. I usually get bored with this type of stuff and don't hang around over the glass cases.

By the end of the visit, I felt as if I had once known Burns personally, and that these were merely reminders of a time when we were friends. I didn't realize that's what I felt until I just wrote that. Well, yes, I did, only I didn't think I'd ever write it. All day long I've been feeling at home in a weird sort of way. More like I'm close to a long-forgotten home. Is this my imagination? Maybe so, and I choose to accept and trust it anyway.

Perhaps that's why I also lingered at the abbey later in the day. I felt as if I'd been there before. Had walked the cloisters. Touched the stones. I found many heart-shaped pebbles there among the gravel. And samples of the sandstone-like rock that's used at the abbey. And this funny little metal toy knight who is straddling an invisible horse. That will be fun for the mosaic.

Sweetheart Abbey is so named because it was built by Lady Devorgilla de Balliol who, with her husband, John Balliol, founded Oxford College and helped educate the masses. Their marriage was very close, and when he died, she grieved him for the rest of her life, cherishing his embalmed heart in a box that she carried all the time. She and the heart are buried under a large slab at the altar of the abbey.






The abbey is in ruins, ransacked for its stone centuries ago. And unlike Sarum Mound in Salisbury, this place is easy to understand and mentally extrude onto space--about a third of the walls and arches exist, and the outline of the remaining foundation is easy to follow. It was started in 1273 as a Cistercian abbey, by an order of Benedictine monks who were particularly rigorous in their lifestyle.

The churchyard at the back--you can't go far in the UK without running into a cemetery--is a forest of shoulder-high, brick-red tombstones dating from the late 1700s. A poignant headstone marks the death of five people: three daughters at very young ages, and the parents, the wife dying about a week after her husband, both in their 70s. The north side of the churchyard is the modern section, with the most recent grave I found from January 2006. The stones in the newer section are much shorter, too--only knee high--which makes for a less enclosed feeling in this part of the yard.

Back at Dumfries, I ate dinner at Robert the Bruce on Buccleuch Street, a columned bank built in the ubiquitous red sandstone and converted to a pub/restaurant. I had meant to go to any other pub before I defaulted to this one, but it was the only one on my short list that I could locate as I walked around town.

The pub has the atmosphere of a TGI Fridays and the first reasonably-priced menu I've seen since Farmborough. The most expensive meal is £7, and that's for a steak dinner. Prices average £1-3 less for the same kind of food here than in England. Decided on the chicken, ham, leek pie with chips and vegetables and half a pint of a "guest" ale--Dragonfly from a local Scottish brewery. It was described as a "light hoppy bitter" with only 3.8% alcohol. Sounds about right--it leaves a sharpness on my tongue and has a definite flavor of hops.

I've noticed a conspicuous absence of Cross of St George flags here in Scotland, given that its southerly neighbor is playing in the World Cup. Although most of the pubs advertise that they're showing the games, local conversations and newscasts about a Scot getting punched in the eye for openly supporting England indicate that there's no love lost between the Scots and English for this game. I've already been told that it's best to downplay that I've been following England's progress.

It's 10:22p, the sun set an hour ago, and the sky still looks like it's 7:00p back home. The later summer twilight at this higher latitude encourages me to stay up late. Tonight after dinner I walked the western side of town and entered the grounds of the Dumfries museum and Camera Obscura near my B&B.

The gardens are elevated and use old stone bits collected from who-knows-where in the steps and edgings--angels, animals, dates. I wouldn't be surprised to find a stone or two from Sweetheart Abbey.

Behind the main building is a weird collection of carved and broken stones, leftovers laid out from a century ago and others from the Depression. A thick iron plaque, its paint chipped and rusted, names the engineers and sub-managers of the Dumfries Gas Co in 1932.

A statue carefully preserved in a huge cylindrical glass case with pillars inside--itself an incongruity beside the derelict stones and busts--shows "Old Mortality and His Pony," dated 1841. A sign explains that the statue had been won in a lottery on behalf of a Dumfries doctor, who then died in an accident the next day. I suppose the city was faced with the dilemma of where to put a multi-ton rendition of an old traveler who is reclining on a slab next to his life-size pony. Behind glass near the museum was probably as good a place as any.

I wonder what Burns, champion of the mundane, would have written about it.

Long Day's Journey into Dumfries

I walked into the breakfast room of the Malvern Hotel at 8:00am sharp (per the proprietor's orders) and for the second time in as many days, the group of two dozen grade school students on a field trip from Norfolk all stopped their eating and chattering to stare at me as if I were some weird life form--nothing to fear, perhaps, but something unusual to note. I was the only other guest there, and alone at that, which may have made for a phenomenon.

It was only after I served myself cocoa crispies and corn flakes from the various vats of cereal and sat down to my tea that they returned uneasily to their meals. They continued to eye me as if I might sprout antennae or pull out a laser gun while they weren’t looking. I was feeling a little unnerved by their scrutiny, myself.

This day with the longest amount of daylight is also my day of longest travel so far--Wight to Dumfries, an eight-stage travel that involves a walk to the Sandown train station, a ride on the rickety-rackitta Wight railway, a ferry crossing, a train to London Waterloo, a subway to London Euston, a train to Carlisle, another to Dumfries, and a walk to my B&B a mile and a half away. Departure time 9:30am. Estimated arrival time 9:00pm. Whew, I'm exhausted already.

Finally heading for Scotland, and feeling happy about it. Spent Portsmouth to London Waterloo gluing paper scraps and memories collected through Lydford into my scrapbook and then napping. The London train to Carlisle is a long one--3.5 hours. The tables are all set with flatware and glasses and paper placemats, so a meal must be coming. Or maybe they're for drawing. Naw, probably not--no crayons provided. First class cabins do have access to electric power, so I've pulled out Perry and its folding keyboard and am writing this at the dining table.

I'm liking the travel life again. Why the heck not do more of it? Before this month away, traveling long term seemed an impossible thought. How could I afford it? How could I live it, working as I go? Why shouldn't I keep going like this, get into apprenticeships and service programs in exchange for lodging and food and learning?

"Have you still got your curly whirlies?"

The comment booms from the seat ahead of me, so unusual that I just have to stop typing. A Englishman in a business suit is talking into his cell phone with the eagerness of a lovesick teenager. I suppress a giggle and try to keep my attention on my writing.

"Haven't had some of them cut off, have you?"

It's no use. My fingers have stopped on the keyboard, and I'm chortling into my water glass to cover a laugh.

"I'll be home soon to see your curly whirlies. Bye-bye, my love."

I just have to take that one down. Now where was I? Ah, right. Work, travel, living. I've needed this time to kick myself out of a groove and into trying and trusting new things. Before, I was a blank, afraid to start, not sure where to start. Now I feel open to all kinds of ways to earn my keep without necessarily earning an income. This is, for me, truly trusting the universe instead of my own figuring out of things...being open to nudges and ideas and leads and just going for what feels right, rather than what rationalizes as right.

I got into Dumfries to rain and high winds--the first wet weather I've hit in over two weeks. Bundled myself and my pack up in full rain gear and walked through town to cross River Nith as my B&B proprietor had instructed. There I got turned around a bit (yes, even with a map) and asked directions from a white-haired lady toting a plastic bag of groceries and using a hat instead of an umbrella. She got me righted in direction, then asked, "Traveling alone?"

I grinned Yes through the downpour and she said, "And a woman. Good for you." Her thumb went up. "One up!" she cried, and waved goodbye across the street.

One up, indeed. I folded my soggy map and grinned through the final blocks to the B&B, tired after a long day of traveling, but feeling less like a weird life form and more like a brave woman of the world.