Abergwaun, Cymru
The climate was rather splendid today. The light was like that I imagine impressionist painters would have relished in the Loire River Valley. I set off on the long hike to the Internet café about 2 PM. I was perhaps half a mile down one of these narrow lanes that passes for a road when I encountered a rather intriguing traffic jam, a large herd of cows with a pair of temperamental bulls. A car which passed me previously was now waiting for the herd to be coaxed down another narrow lane. I found myself standing next to this car and a couple of farmers, waiting for these cows to finish their slow-speed rush hour to the milking shed.
As is likely to happen in this region of the world, a fleck of evanescent community washed up onto the shores of my life. The farmers gave me some assurances that the bulls were mostly ok; I found myself having an urge to hop into the nearby safety of this glass and metal cage next to me. The driver put down his window and we began the usual banter provoked by the presence of an American in a place most Americans would not know the existence of. He proceeded to tell me that he had and his grandfather had spent their childhoods in the very same four-hundred year old house I am presently staying in.
Roy and his wife Sandra had just made a journey from Carmarthen to a remote headland near here to leave flowers on the graves of family members. People here seem to remember those that gave them life and make sure that their graves are not forgotten; putting wildflowers on them.
Perhaps the most endearing story to come out of the colorful history of Dartmoor is the one of J’s grave. For centuries now the grave of a nameless indentured little girl, known only as “J”, has always had yellow flowers on it. Years ago I made a drive to the remote location to see for myself. There were, indeed, abundant fresh yellow flowers in place in an assortment of glass jars. It felt far more like an altar than a grave. I went to a nearby field to harvest some of my own and added them to the bouquet. I was a part of a community that finds it important to make sure J has flowers in the afterlife since she never got them in her tortured childhood. I remember that moment from another century as if it happened today.
Today I found myself a part of a community at bovine rush hour in a narrow lane, reminiscing about ancestors and our origins, because it was important for another grave to have flowers on it. Yet, during this conversation I was thinking about how glorious it would be to ride across the valley in that nice warm car, being spared a no-longer exotic eight-mile journey to an Internet café. They finally asked if I was interested in a lift. The cows moved on as I climbed into another place that felt like a gilded sedan chair. I had just been spared the ninety minute hike across the valley. Better than a free ride was touching another facet of the splendid culture that populates the valleys between the several ranges of mountains to the east. Roy and his hospitable wife Sandra shared animated conversation, and we swapped e-mail details as we arrived at the far side of the valley. I have yet one more motivation to get my computer fixed when I get home; it having lost its ability to connect to the larger glorious world out here.
I found myself in the public library by 2:15 PM instead of 4 PM by virtue of being given a lift. I was granted a whole hour of free access on a good broadband. I was able to upload many messages. The librarian was so pleasant and helpful, as to have me again thinking about the possibilities of immigration. After my hour was up I wandered into another part of the town hall that serves as a local history museum. I had the luxury of unbounded time to view a 100 foot tapestry made by forty women to commemorate the bicentennial of a locally famous battle with the French. There were three large paintings by Leon and Sylvia located in the small museum theater as well. It is such a great luxury to be unencumbered by people that so often want to be somewhere else. I can wander about as slowly as I wish.
In the brilliant sunlight, I wandered back across the square to St. Mary’s church and found it unlocked and went inside. The light was splendid for ‘collecting’ several of the windows that I missed last week. There was also a bowl of small perfectly rounded beach stones for those who left prayers on a small chapel altar. I took one. This church ‘works’, perhaps better than any I have encountered in all of Europe.
Given the brilliant sunlight, I decided on going the long way back to Fronhaul, walking about five miles along undulating coastal paths that took me around Lower Town and the harbor and then along the larger bay and back up into the western headlands above Wdig. The walk took about two hours, slowed down a bit by numerous coastal scenes in need of ‘collection’.
I returned to find Sylvia and Leon having just completed a painting session and now interested in making dinner. We ended up eating while watching a three and a half hour German film of life aboard a U-Boat during the Second War. This rather intense and graphic film was far more like an art film with a powerful message than a piece of Hollywood entertainment tripe. I am not sure it was such a good idea to load my brain with something this intense and dark, but many people do live unbelievably tragic lives and these lives need to be remembered, perhaps by viewing a film as much as by leaving yellow flowers on a grave in Dartmoor. I wonder why I have been allowed a life that now consists largely of hauling a computer and cameras to wherever I want to go in the world. I was offered more free air tickets today.
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