Corn-ish

     Cornwall, England, is not that easy to get to if you're coming from the West.  Flights to London may be all over the map (three airlines each have three nonstop flights a day just from Los Angeles, causing Delta to pull out of that nonstop market) so getting to London itself is somewhat of a breeze.  And there are nonstops from other west coast cities, including Salt Lake City, where we were (although Delta has reduced those flights from daily to 5x per week).  But whatever city you'd pick, you'd face at least 10 hours of flying, and land with the usual grogginess as you waded ahead to the no-human customs/immigration area (pretty much everything is facial recognition these days so forget that stamp on your passport).  Another slog of 20 minutes to the bus terminal (in the UK buses are called coaches, as in Ted Lasso) and after another 90 minutes, you'd have pulled into Gatwick Airport (nonstop flights from Heathrow are only in the 3 busy summer months when Cornwall becomes a vacation escape for many in the UK).  Wait another few hours at that airport and then board the one hour+ flight to Newquay, Cornwall (coach or rail the travel time from Heathrow would be 6-7 hours minimum, if you'd be willing to spend more time sitting after getting off that 10- or 11-hour flight).  A quick cab ride to your rented cottage, and you'd realize that nearly 30 hours had passed.  So to quickly answer your question, Cornwall is indeed stunning and well worth visiting, but it takes a bit of determination and planning.  So the only question at that point would be to ask: fancy a pint?

     We had missed a visit last year, this trip usually being an annual thing;* but we were once again ready to walk along a portion of what author Raynor Winn termed, The Salt Path.  The southern coast of this part of England is quite often windy and filled with sharply defined cliffs, the blue waters of the Atlantic crashing below and little changed since the days when pirates smuggled everything from liquor, to silks & spices.  On a beautiful day the waters look quite inviting but are always hiding both their cold and their strength.  Given an ability to see a time lapse, the tides would appear tsunami-like, filling beaches and caves then exposing them anew some twelve hours later.  It was one of the unique traits of this coast, a visual sight that residents perhaps numb themselves to but for visitors like us, something that always proves refreshing and thrilling.  Walk the beaches to town in the morning, then see the tides almost violently bury everything by evening.  All of which brought to mind the words of former American ambassador to Britain, Raymond Seitz:

...as the British adore what is old, Americans delight in what is new.  New suggest change, and we like change not because it is necessarily better but just because it is new.  America is, after all, the New World, a planet away from the past.  We called places New York and New England, New Orleans and New Mexico, and our politicians have always promised a fresh beginning -- a New Freedom, a New Deal, a New Frontier, a New World Order.  In America, a new idea can always get an even break, and as Disraeli observed, you can always start over.  Because Americans fancy what is new, we also come in for a lot of criticism.  We are often neglectful of the past, it is said, and can therefore seem untutored or naïve.  We sometimes seem a little reckless.  And it is true that we are preoccupied by speed and self-improvement and instant reward.  We often disparage what is old, especially the growing of it.  Still, these characteristics which treat time as a vacation also make Americans original and willing to try new things, and I think the sense of edgy liberation is what excites the British about America.  So, if all the world's a stage, America is a one-act-play, and the idea is that you perform the role you write yourself.  Britain, on the other hand, is a saga, and you play the scene as it was written long ago. The other dimension that distinguishes one country from the other is space.  This is obvious to say.  But it is different to feel.  America rolls out in front of you.  Britain closes in around you.

      Once here, especially in the smaller towns of which there are many in Cornwall, that feeling of closeness is indeed there (at least if you avoid the summers, and perhaps the rainy winters).  Walk into a small pub and you can feel that the atmosphere has changed; the liveliness, or sometimes quietness, are both welcomed and noticeably different than say walking into a bar in the States, the term used in the UK to describe the U.S.  Beers here are much lower in alcohol content, similar to those in Mexico, generally topping out around 4.2% or so (beers on the U.S. typically hover closer to 5%).  But the mood is different, the patrons are here to sit and enjoy, to take their time and maybe grab a bite to eat, perhaps gab with strangers and become friends with them (we've exchanged many an address).  Pubs usually end up being a mix of visitors and older residents, the locals who pop down for a pint somewhat regularly and just reflect on where they are in their lives, soaking in life, drink, and comfort food.  They're not here to get tipsy, or drunk, although one nearly-toothless Scot I could barely understand took an immediate liking to me for some reason, as I did him, and he was quite merry (admittedly, we had crashed a wedding party at the bar and one of the bridesmaid asked me to dance so I think that my wife and I may have been quite merry as well).  One couple we met some years ago at another pub had retired as members of a choir, moving to Cornwall to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and before long --and in this rather crowded pub-- they burst into a song just to please us (and they were quite good).  That wasn't karaoke, just a  glimpse of genuineness.

     This was Duchy land, land carved out like an easement for the public, described on its site as: ...a private estate established by Edward III in 1337 to provide independence to his son and heir, Prince Edward.  A charter ruled that each future Duke of Cornwall would be the eldest surviving son of the Monarch and heir to the throne.  The current Duke is HRH The Prince of Wales.  He is the 25th Duke in the estate's history.  The revenue from his estate is used to fund the public, private and charitable activities of The Duke and his immediate family.  Such land cuts through farms and open spaces so that people can cross, and cross they do.  In places the path is just wide enough for a single hiker, its grassy sides enough to step onto to allow others to pass; and in other areas busloads of kids can and do gleefully scamper around.  It's been this way for generations, and although Charles is now king, his efforts to maintain and protect the environment remain strong.  But then, as the London Review pointed out: In Who Owns England? –a nod to Wightman’s 1996 Who Owns Scotland?– Guy Shrubsole found that half of England is owned by less than 1 per cent of its population, around 25,000 people.  Around a third, he estimated, is still owned by the aristocracy and the gentry.  To even the casual walker, that is a lot of land which is now mired in controversy.  And here we thought that that 1% owning the wealth was only in the States...

     A portion of the book's site noted that the land "owned" by the Duchy is: ...not a company (and so doesn’t pay Corporation Tax).  It’s not a charity.  It’s not a public body (though it is accountable to the Treasury, and Parliament) and it’s not subject to Freedom of Information law (though it is subject to requests under the Environmental Information Regulations, in its narrow capacity as a harbour-master).  It is, in short, something of an anachronism – but one that has survived for nearly 700 years and continues to grow in size...it’s the private estate of the heir to the throne and the largest private landholding in England.  And as Raynor Winn pointed out, you can't overnight camp along the path, which is not the case in Scotland.  And therein the debate...the United Kingdom seems about as together these days (again) as the United States.  Ah, but that beautiful coast...even here, nature cared not a whit; and before long, my tired feet and thirsty gullet would be waiting to be satiated at a nearby pub.  It really didn't matter which pub since another plus of hiking along the coast of Cornwall is that generally at the beginning and the end of each trail segment, there will be a local pub ready to ease whatever may be bothering you.  It would be yet another great visit...or at least that's how it was all supposed to go.

     It was quite the normal day, me walking the dog as I did each morning, careful to cross the street whenever I saw people or other dog walkers coming my way, just as a precaution.  Our 90-lb. German Shepherd is quite the looker but when he barks it can definitely get your attention.  But this particular Sunday I happened to be coming out of a curved part of the street and when I rounded it, there was a fellow walker with his dogs, a guy I bump into regularly; we usually wave to each other, albeit from a bit of a distance.  My dog, quite protective these days, pulled me forward as they passed nearby, then crossed in front of me as the dogs continued past, taking me down as quickly as a judo kick.  You all right, the other walker asked (my dog continued to bark) and I replied with the usual chuckle that all was fine (not sure why we tend to do that when we fall, as if embarrassed).  But I wasn't.  Something hurt and I stayed down for a minute or so to evaluate my options.  Then slowly, very slowly, I got to my feet and tried to take a step forward since, having been the end of my walk, my house was just across the street.  I couldn't do it.  I waited, then waited some more, but the pain was debilitating, sending big electric shocks each time I moved.  My wife had to come get the dog, then actually drive back out with the car just to get me back to the house  (did I mention that it was right across the street).  What the heck had happened?  And didn't I just write about those balance exercises and such?  Dang.  You're going to the emergency, she told me (why do such things always happen on a Sunday?).

     So the emergency room: this wasn't Chicago or Philly so I didn't expect to see gunshot victims or bloodied shirts from stabbings, but I knew it would be a place where I'd meet all sorts, from people who didn't seem sick at all to someone who would walk in with a broken collarbone from skateboarding (which happened 20 minutes after I checked in).  Let's get some X-rays, a staffer told me but the results showed nothing; the doc's assistant, who pressed my hips, then pushed in here and lifted me there, soon shrugged her shoulders and said that I likely just sprained a few muscles (phew!).  But she added, a CT scan would show smaller details that they may have missed; we can do one IF you want.  If we want, asked my wife?  We were heading to England in a few days and if there was any chance that I had a fracture, now would be the time to find it, not when we're in a different country.  Get that CT scan ordered.  And lo and behold, there it was.  A pubic rami fracture.  So to paraphrase a retired ortho surgeon friend of ours explaining what that was, he told us, "picture your pelvis as a bowl which you've cracked on one side; another fall and you'll crack the other side and then you will need surgery..."  Uneven surfaces, sand, rocky edges, all the places we usually hike in Cornwall: out of the question.  We would have to cancel everything (so much for those savings).  Fractures of the pelvis are uncommon -- they make up only about 3% of all fractures in adults, wrote OrthoInfo, which added: Because the pelvic bones are near major blood vessels and organs, pelvic fractures may cause extensive bleeding and other injuries that require urgent treatment.  I was lucky.  Bleeding was minimal and the damage was limited to, in their parlance, a hairline fracture.

     So to back up, I wasn't alone in this since the World Health Organization predicts that in about 25 years, the number of people age 60+ will double.  And yes, I had unexpectedly become one of those Medicare statistics that say we oldsters are more prone to falling (but it was the dog's fault!).  Still, I had to count my lucky stars, even as I wondered how such a small break in the bone, and a few bruised ribs, could be so painful.  No turning over in bed, no fast walking (as if), no twisting, no turning, period.  Any violation of those, even unconsciously, and an electric jolt would snap you to attention over and over and over, even at (or especially at) 2 AM.  The younger Dani Shapiro added these observations after her unexpected fall, writing a guest piece in the NY Times: I made my way to the top of the stairs, grabbed the banister and took them one by one.  Each step felt treacherous, as if the world had tilted on its axis and I alone were about to slide off.  It was a familiar feeling, by which I don’t mean that I experienced injuries like these before but rather that a shadow had revealed itself, a powerful reminder that life is uncontrollable and unpredictable and we are fragile...When we fall, we are consumed with embarrassment and its more toxic cousin, shame.  Mortified by our fragility and its accompanying whisper of aging and death...When we’re injured, we’re suddenly separated from the herd of the healthy.  

     Things happen for a reason, I believe, even if (and often because) we don't know why.  For me, my life didn't feel "rushed" although both my wife and I did feel that having this time away would have been a good "recharge" for us, just as vacations are for many, a time to leave routines and the "kids;" a time to enjoy a week or so of just being carefree in a sense.  Once a vacation is underway, things fall out of your control, whether through distance or time, and at some point you recognize that and begin to "slow down."  This was my reasoning for why this had happened, that some external force was chuckling and letting me know that this injury was anything but an accident.  This was actually something that I needed.  Here's how Melissa Kirsch put it in her piece in the NY Times as she wrote about what she had heard on the radio on her drive home: “These commuters are ready for this day to be over, once and for all.”  Of course the message was the commuters wanted to get home and have dinner and go to bed already.  But the finality of “once and for all” made it sound as though the commuters were so fed up that they wanted to end that day and all days.  Or, as my friend wrote: "Certainly at one point the day will definitely be over once and for all for each of us.  Is that what we’re rushing toward?”  This obsession with being done with things, of living life like an endless to-do list, is ridiculous.  I find myself sometimes having a lovely time, out to dinner with friends, say, and I’ll notice an insistent hankering for the dinner to be over.  Why?  So I can get to the next thing, who cares what the next thing is, just keep going.  Keep rushing, even through the good parts.

     Psychology professor Daryl Van Tongeren wrote a piece in The Conversation, one which talked about humility, and specifically about intellectual humility.  In the essay, he wrote about: ...owning and admitting your flaws and limitations, seeing the world as it is rather than as you wish it to be...When you can admit and take ownership of your limitations, you can seek help in areas where you have room to grow, and you’re more responsive to information.  When you limit yourself to only doing things the way you’ve always done them, you miss out on countless opportunities for growth, expansion and novelty – things that strike you with awe, fill you with wonder and make life worth living.  My fracture, painful as it's been, has taught me many things: about not rushing, about empathy, about intricacy, about dependence, and perhaps most importantly, about being grateful.  

     The "rushing" part?  Like any person with a painful injury, I felt how easy it was to taste depression.  For over a week, each day brought little improvement in both pain and mobility.  And when things did improve, I rushed to the next level --tackling the stairs with my weakened leg, lifting a bag of bird seed to put in a bin-- and each time I did so I found myself going back a day.  The cure and advice by doctors was to rest, and I had to learn the hard way that rest meant rest.  And once I had begun to actually quit trying to hurry things along, I could see things from a different perspective, of how many duties my wife was covering for me, so many that it made me tired just watching her.  I could also see that only with rest would my fracture begin to heal, and that I was indeed healing.  The resting gave me time to began thinking of others, ones whose injuries would take years to heal, or perhaps would never get much better, those with missing limbs or paralysis or a terrible disease.  If my peek into depression was happening after only a mere week, I tried to imagine the double-battle of those facing a much longer healing time.  Even with my small fracture starting to get better, my doc told me that another fall now would find me really feeling pain, as if what I was currently experiencing was actually low on the pain scale.  How did (do) those with chronic pain make it through?  How do the victims of war deal with a leg or a face shattered?  How does an accident victim with a crushed pelvis deal with the agony, especially if mine was only a small fracture?  Day after day, those thoughts were humbling for I knew that barring me being careless, I would get better.  For many, I realized, that wasn't going to happen.  I certainly didn't have ALS, or a brain tumor, which is what author and war correspondent Rod Nordland was told: So you get a dire diagnosis, and even if you are not a journalist, you start doing the research.  But if you are a journalist, the intensity of that research is supercharged -- you go deep, audaciously interviewing folks who might know more...And naturally, everyone you know --family, friends, fellow reporters-- is doing the same thing...I had taken my brain for granted these many years.  Don't we all?  I never appreciated its dazzling complexity, its resilience, its fragility, and, alas, its occasional unreliability.  But there is nothing like a brain tumor to concentrate the mind, so to speak, even as it does its best to shred one's capacity to use it.  Demonstrating, as it does, the profound differences and interdependences between our minds and our brains...But as I look back, as I ponder mortality and the certainty that I now have more yesterdays than tomorrows.

     Feeling my body heal, and seeing the X-ray of the fracture and its resulting ability to limit and control my movements, made me again respect the intricacy of our bodies, how delicate a structure it can be, and yet remain an engineering marvel.  And watching my wife try to maintain her normal life while taking on my life as well, was not only humbling but an outpouring of love.  What did people do who were alone, or had no means to be examined or cared for?  How could you add such loneliness and frailty onto that growing mound of depression?  And what if you were the main source of income within your family and your "job" didn't have sick leave, or medical insurance, or perhaps any guarantee that it would be there when you got better?  What if you were already living financially on a cliff's edge and now whatever you had saved for a rainy day was gone?  All of those thoughts swirled around my head, along with the knowledge that I would heal and that I would get better, at least this time.  

     If gratitude could be touched, it would be the body - the ultimate anchor to this earth, wrote Virginia Vigliar in Waves.  Gratitude is patient, trusting, and loving, always just a step away.  We are all constantly evolving, and showing up in a loving way for ourselves fosters growth.  In a society that privileges productivity over mental health, gratitude becomes a revolutionary act.  It calls for us to PAUSE, reflect, and acknowledge not just our accomplishments but also the support and contributions of others who have uplifted us along the way.  So yes, I was more than grateful.  My fall could have been much worse.  So what if our vacation was cancelled; there would be another.  I was in my home, being taken care of while I healed.  I was being given another chance to savor life, to absorb it as the delicacy it is, to be grateful that all of the hazy attitudes unconsciously building within me were being cleared away.  I was grateful that I had discovered that both a hairline fracture and a large break in my life was now slowly healing...     

*To learn more about Cornwall, from their prehistoric buried forests to their days of pilchards and mining, visit a few of my earlier posts by typing "Cornwall" in the search bar on the main page...as but one example, those two tidal pictures of the same area, the ones in this post, were from our visit in 2015.