Back late last winter, before I set off on this journey, I shared in my first post that my dad’s teenage walk back to London from Wales in 1939 inspired me to step out on the trails that criss-cross all over the British Isles and to walk a long way northwards. Unfortunately, I don’t remember an actual conversation when he shared details of his journey, which roads he used, how long it took, what he was thinking about, challenges and joys he met. I have only vague memories of him mentioning it; I think now perhaps I didn’t appear interested enough for him to regale me with his boyhood exploits. Also, it was a fearful time, and returning to London with the threat of bombing raids skews the creation of fun and playful stories with which to entertain one’s children. I do remember his sad retelling of the death of a neighborhood friend as she approached an unexploded ordnance; it has stuck with me. But most of his conversations with me settled on happier and more lovely things; he adored classical music, knew beautiful art pieces, and devoured literature. He was passionate and reverent in his enjoyment, and he took seriously his responsibility as a parent to pass on this pleasure. His regular sharing of beloved art forms often seemed to me entwined with England’s beauty itself. An important part of slowing down and walking across Britain was to honor my dad’s memory. He wondered aloud about the End-to-End journey, and his romantic notions of it placed a spark that grew to an ember and eventually ignited a desire to do a big thing.
What I had not anticipated was that he would be walking alongside me. And my mother, too. Their presence was constant, and mostly light, playful and heartwarming. But there was a heaviness as well. There were things I so much wanted to share with them, see their reaction to, ask them about: the loss was palpable. My dad passed away suddenly on my birthday in 2004, my mom more slowly declined and her world became smaller with reduced hearing and sight as she seemed to age into a younger self into her mid-90s. They both lived long, full lives and I was able to share my children with them as they enjoyed their grandparent hood. But those were noisy years through my childhood, young adulthood, and becoming a parent myself along with a busy job. I didn’t listen to them much, really. Didn’t slow down to take a close look at what they were up to, outside of providing for me and my young family. Now I was gifted with an immense space of quiet hours walking along hedge-lined country roads, across fields, and among ancient woods, hours that drifted through memories of my parents and wonderings about the nature of parenthood itself.
Fortuitously, the calendar dates of the best time for me to take off from my “normal” life matched the great spring blooms across the British countryside. Walking south to north the flowers’ fresh colors kept coming and coming, and the most spectacular of these were the woods and fields full of bluebells. Somewhere back in a post months ago I mentioned my father’s recounting of the family stories of his grandfather going with his little horse cart to pick bluebells. Aged out of builder’s work in the 1920s, he would help supplement the family income by picking the delicate popular flowers to sell in the market. Or that was the ruse it seemed. For he would forever agitate his wife by setting off early for the woods north of Enfield, where the M25 now circles around the north-side of London. My dad always pointed out where the woods had been when we drove to visit my uncles on our visits from my home in Cambridge twenty-five years ago. He would chuckle at the memory of the stories of his grandmother’s endless dismay when her husband regularly returned late, leaning close to falling out of the cart’s seat, humming to himself, heavy ale on his breath, the horse knowing the way back home, and no bluebells in sight. Every patch of bluebells I passed brought my father’s humor. I found his laugh infectious, and this was a great daily joy as I walked. There were many patches of bluebells.
He was with me as I walked through flock after flock of lambs, with a mischievous grin and smacking his lips as he baa-ed his enthusiasm for ‘laaaammbb chops’. His cheerful teasing when I was a child, at every field we drove past with sheep drove me crazy; now I loved that he so loved his minty lamb meals. And I loved this memory. There were many flocks of lambs.
The kind man who went out of his way in Abbotsham, Devon to help Kimberly and me find a restroom before the village was awake and open, and then gave us very precise instructions on the best, driest, and prettiest way to get back to the coastal path was I swear my father’s doppelgänger in manner and voice. Over and over, my dad was walking beside me. Kippers served at a pub for breakfast. Books set out in those little sharing libraries along small roads with titles catching my eye by Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolf, and PG Wodehouse. A local theater production of Noel Coward’s ‘Blithe Spirit’. A man wearing a handkerchief on his head with corners tied as a small shelter from the sun. A museum of South African history (he had been in the SA Navy, and wanted to emigrate there but couldn’t stomach Apartheid). Violins lilting from a farmhouse window as I walked by in a music piece I didn’t recognize but I’m sure he would have. As more memories were sparked, I understood his lessons of cherishing small joys and letting the big worries take their course. Often only those small things right in front of us are within our control, and even then barely, so don’t hold on too tight. Walk through with curiosity, live quietly, keep moving. My brother Paul once shared some favorite lines of our father’s from a William Blake poem: ‘But he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sun rise.’ And I was enjoying myself immensely.
I expected my dad to be with me, I intended him to be. In a way I was walking because he hadn’t been able to. What took me a bit by surprise was the many moments my mom was there as well. There were the things that reminded me of her: the mile after mile of primroses she loved, the toby jug collection in the bed and breakfast in Yorkshire, the front seat atop the one double decker bus I caught a ride on, cockles and whelks for sale on the promenade in Spittal. And more. But she wasn’t just alongside me, she was in me. It was a freedom not to have mirrors to look into everyday for most accommodations only had small little pieces of glass above the sink, but when I did catch a clearer reflection of myself in a shop window or a long pub mirror I was taken aback at how similar to my mom I am becoming. My face, my posture, my movement - I saw my mom. It’s uncanny. I’ve gotten used to it now, and often say ‘hello’ to her when I am brushing my teeth. More importantly, and gratefully though, was when I recognized her in my resilience and fortitude. She would never give up, she took on hard tasks, she pushed through them with resolve and positivity. She dug deep and had reservoirs of strength and ingenuity that amazed me. When I was younger they exhausted and frustrated me when I would be pulled somehow into her plans. Well, I was pretty sure there was a chance that I would fail on this endeavor, that I would get to a hill too steep or a day too cold and not be able to push through. Or I would be too afraid. Or if I did make it through a challenge, I would do it miserably. It turned out that when times became toughest, I dug deep to find the reservoirs of my mom - I really recognized them as such. I pushed through and did hard things with a sense of pride and joy, not the misery I feared. It took putting myself out there alone in valleys I had to climb out of to discover the greatest treasures my mom gave to me, that I have immense depths of strength and I am never alone. My mom was a complicated person, and our relationship was often fraught, but during this trip I grew to love and appreciate her like never before.
To have the luxury of spending so much time with my parents was a great gift. There has been a lot of loss and change in the last couple of years. We sold my family home that my parents moved into in 1960. There was much stuff to sort through, most of which was disposed of. Hard decisions and repeated goodbyes. The loss went deeper than the building and its items, with relationships suffering and rupturing as I’ve learned sometimes happens with big family decisions. I have felt adrift from the anchor of my family of origin. And in the family I have created, change has also been afoot. As it should be. The confusion around how to parent children who are no longer children, who have homes and lives of their own, who are occupied building up while I am slowing down, has interesting elements of loss. Across the days of walking in the country which my parents grew to their own adulthoods in, a country that formed them but one that I was now seeing more of than they ever had the opportunity to, there was a palpable grace in settling into their presence and love. I understood them anew, with a fresh heart and mind. There was a bittersweetness that was not lost upon me in understanding that I had not had the wisdom or ability to share time with them deeply when they were available to me, just as now my children are busily moving through their days. It’s a funny thing about growth; the decades are needed to experience and learn, but those decades zoom quite quickly past, and by the time you understand what questions you want to ask, what ideas you wish to share, what places you want to travel with the other, and together over how many cup of tea you wish to savor, those beloved people have often moved on. It seems to be the natural order of things, so I have not bemoaned it too much. Instead I am grateful my parents joined me as I walked through their country, constantly showing it to me with fresh eyes and heart. Second goal of walking from Cornwall to Scotland, done. I walked with my father, and my mother.
With which people might you want to take a walk or share a cup of tea while they're still here on this side with you? What questions might you ask and dreams wonder about? And if for some reason, those folks are not available, I discovered the trees, wind and birds make fine companions to rouse memories of those you love.
Here are some photos of a lovely afternoon walk I took yesterday with Chip, up a hill and above the trees to look over the granite mountains of my Truckee home. Note, I heard only one birdsong. It’s very quiet here compared to the British countryside. I miss that.
