October 2, 2019
England’s midlands with all her rolling hills, quaint villages and hamlets –all tucked in through a patchwork of hedgerows of ever changing cultivated, fallowed and pastured fields (mostly with sheep) seem to me like the so many nooks and crannies of her historic country cottages –quirky at first visit, but ever revealing themselves through repeated glances, adventures, explorations.
Footpaths
The best way to explore the midlands is perhaps by foot. Footpaths often begin in small villages, venture deep into farmer’s fields–I was eye to eye with a herd of cattle last week quite by accident– and meander in and around forested areas. Some footpaths will even take ramblers through graveyards, where I walked amongst tombstones dating back nearly 500 years. After my first attempt of climbing Dover Hill near our AirBNB in Western Subedge, I mentioned to our host Frankie that I got lost. I was worried that I was disturbing the farmer’s flock of the field I was dumped in. “That’s the fun of it,” she said, laughing. Everyone gets lost. You take one footpath to the next and the next and before you know it you’re in a spot you hadn’t imagined you’d land at the outset.” Wait? Get lost? I had permission to take an afternoon and get lost? I’m not sure why I needed it, but I did. Somehow as a “responsible” mother, wife, sister, teacher, woman of 40+ I’d concreted in my agenda oriented mind that I simply didn’t get lost. Lost was for overwrought teenagers. Lost was for recent college graduates. Lost was for the 11 year old me exploring the creek-bed near my childhood home in Central PA. Yet, here I was told by another 40 year old woman to take some time, get lost, and enjoy.
Heeding Frankie’s advice, I did go back to the footpaths that meandered up and around Dover Hill. I don’t know how much I walked or how long it took me. I don’t know many kilometers I walked or how many steps I took. I wasn’t sure if I “did it right” or hit the summit at the spot recommended to do so. I didn’t keep track. I let one foot guide me up and around and over into the nooks and crannies of my time alone. With each step, I looked more broadly and sensed more deeply my connection to the land, to my physical body, and to essence of me. I think my eleven year old self would be proud of the nooks and crannies I noticed blooming up and all around me: a marsh harrier swooping down to catch her prey, a patch of bright yellow flowers blossoming in the far corner of a field, stinging nettle’s creeping journey down a footpath, the lowered head of fully udder-ed cow, the every-changing skyline as I crept up toward the mid-morning sky, and the cool damp of the forest floor beneath me–an old friend whose melodies welcomed me home.
28520 Miles 