When we turn off Route 6 onto Route 6A, Shore Road in Truro, we’re five hundred miles and twelve hours’ driving time from our house in Virginia. But we feel like we’re coming home. And we are, in a way. We’re here every year. We like to think that we’re more than tourists, who are just passing through, perhaps never to return. We will be back; we’re a sure thing. We’ve been coming here so long that we can’t imagine not going back.
Each summer’s inaugural drive down Shore Road finds the three of us exultant. Our time at the Cape is something we agree on completely; we all hold it equally dear, for our own reasons. The trials and traffic of the long trip are behind us. We eagerly scan the familiar land- and seascape along the mile and a half that leads to our little cottage complex. It’s rare that we are greeted by any major changes, and for this we are grateful.
The water, the sand, and the light are in constant daily flux, yet from year to year, this sliver of the Outer Cape appears virtually the same. The manmade trappings along Shore Road are modest; they make no effort to compete with nature’s spectacular beauty. There are bungalows, saltboxes, and of course, Cape Cods, but no high rises, no glitz. There are groupings of rental cottages. Most are small; some are unbelievably tiny. All are picturesque.
Those lucky enough to get a toe-hold along this enchanted strip of land don’t easily let it go. Homes are passed from one generation to the next. The same weathered, typically hand-painted signs in front yards have greeted us for decades: Beach Rose, The Little Skipper, The Sea Gull, Pilgrim Colony. Occasionally a cottage is resided, reshingled or otherwise refurbished. Some grow more charmingly dilapated every year. Once in a very long while a new building appears. Mostly, though, all remains reassuringly the same, and seems to promise always to be so.
Lush, vibrantly colored flowers adorn the minuscule front yards of many Shore Road cottages.
A rusty owl keeps wide-eyed watch in front of one home.
This weathered, shingled cottage, with its Pineys sign, has been here as long as I can remember.
Hydrangeas, in great profusion, flourish along the fencerows.
The vacant motel, languishing in a perpetual sense of comfortable decay.
A vigilant seagull caretaker. After seeing The Birds this summer, I will keep my distance.
Simple bayside cottages, brilliant blue sky, luxuriant green grass. This is our Cape Cod.
Another outing my daughter and I enjoyed during our time in Atlanta was the Imaginary Worlds mosaiculture exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. This beautiful show runs through October and features fantastic topiary creations. Some, like the Earth Goddess above, are of immense proportions. We highly recommend a visit, with the note that there are many shady spots to enjoy the interesting, unusual scenery and wide variety of plant life.
This unicorn was being groomed during our visit.
The ogre appeared sleepy and mild-mannered.
One of several charming bunnies.
Nice doggie! Come! Don’t chase that rabbit!
The unique canopy walk is serene and shaded.
D posed with all the Garden frogs. . .
. . .just as she did during our first visit, in the spring of 2005.
We made plans, and during our week in Atlanta we managed a good mix of keeping busy and sitting around doing nothing. Our fun-for-the-whole-family event was a screening of The Birds at the Fox Theatre, Atlanta’s historic movie palace (See Back When the Movies Were Big: Atlanta’s Fabulous Fox, March 2012). Mama joined D and me at the High Museum for the current special exhibit centered on the famous Vermeer painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring.D humored me by showing interest in my tales of the Museum as it was in the 80s when I worked there. While we lingered in the atrium before leaving, I could almost see my former boss heading toward the galleries with his characteristic bouncy step. (See Remembering Gudmund Vigtel, November 2012).
For a few outings, D and I were on our own. On these excursions, we drove the unlikely second car, an iridescent gold PT Cruiser that Daddy keeps at the ready for us. Neither of my parents claims responsibility for choosing or buying this vehicle, but somehow, they own it. I’m glad, because it has always made D smile. During our annual tour of the shops of Virginia-Highland, we actually made a few purchases. According to tradition, Mama and Daddy met us for lunch that day at George’s.
D and I spent our last Atlanta afternoon meandering through midtown with one of my dearest friends. Tedd and I were in school and church together from second grade on. We therefore have considerable common ground, and we catch up about once a year. We started our wanderings on the grounds of Grady High, our alma mater, which has been expanded and beautifully refurbished in recent years. Reading the bricks of the commemorative courtyard brought back long-submerged memories and inspired recollections of half-forgotten classmates now dispersed. We crossed the street to Piedmont Park and envied the swimmers at the enormous new sparkling pool. When did the city start looking so good, so clean and fresh? We finished our tour at O’Keefe, our former middle school, now owned by Georgia Tech. What was the name of that band that played at the eighth grade dance? Was it really the Family Plan? Tedd, with his easy, endearing sweetness and unique humor, brought D into our shared past in a way that I alone could not. She has come to appreciate Tedd just as I do, and she seemed to take real pleasure in our swapping of 70s-era stories.
At my parents’ house, our sitting around doing nothing was of high quality, as it should be on a vacation. As in previous years, we passed contented hours on the screened porch. Shaded by trees and edged by dense foliage, the porch is like a cage for humans in the midst of a wildlife preserve. It’s a perfect spot to watch the exuberant acrobatics of squirrels, chipmunks, robins, wrens and brown thrashers. In the evenings, we regularly heard a pair of local barred owls calling to one another.
We spent time simply being there with Nana and Papa, engaged in those free-wheeling conversations that seem trivial at the time, but in hindsight, just might be the lifeblood of family and community. Neighbors dropped by, and D and I went visiting, as we always have. Both Sundays at church, I felt as though I were returning to a second home. We were greeted warmly by caring friends, most of whom are watching D grow up from afar.
If, in my last post, my daughter sounded like an entitled, annoying teenager, during the visit she was rarely anything but gracious, patient and kind, to me, my parents, and to all our friends. No one would have recognized her as one suffering the throes of high-tech gadget withdrawal. Some nights, as I drifted off to sleep, I could hear D and her Nana talking and laughing in the TV room the way they have done for years. It’s a lovely, reassuring sound–the sound of my daughter and my mother, two like-minded night owls, good friends, happy and comfortable together.
Before we left for the airport, Daddy cut us some gardenias to carry with us.
They’re dried and brown now, but still fragrant.
Just before our recent trip to Atlanta, my daughter somewhat reluctantly admitted to a concern about boredom during our stay. This made her feel guilty, because she loves my parents, and she knows how much they treasure her, their only grandchild. But, she wondered, what would we do, for eight days? This worry was a first for her. In years past, she has looked forward nearly absolutely to visiting Nana and Papa. When she was younger, of course, the bar for fun and adventure was low and accessible. Beginning with the plane ride, a sojourn in Atlanta was full of thrills, there for easy picking. Her grandparents’ house was an enchanted place, and there was so much to do. A typical day began with a leisurely breakfast on the screened porch. D could have Papa’s scrambled eggs every morning if she wanted; he was truly happy to make them for her. Later, we’d wander from park to park, sampling the different types of playground equipment. We’d “hike” the wooded nature trail by the creek. We’d visit neighbors, who doted on D as if she were their own granddaughter. She’d feed their fish, play with their cats and dogs. In the afternoons, we’d explore a fantastic sea of old toys in the upstairs playroom, or dress up in Nana’s amazing vintage creations. At night, we’d be back on the porch for ice cream and ghost stories. Every day offered wondrous opportunities.
Home sweet home for Nana and Papa.
Now that she’s a teenager, the magic has mostly dissipated. While I expect she’ll always have a sentimental spot in her heart for her grandparents’ home, the silvery jingle of the Southern Express bell is barely audible. Former childhood pleasures inspire only yawns, wistful sighs and bouts of grumpy melancholy. What makes the situation even worse is that, as D grows up, the rest of us are growing older and more jaded. With each passing year, my parents have less interest in leaving the house for entertainment. They’re not recluses or agoraphobics. Most mornings, Daddy is running errands. He zips out and back to Kroger, to the pharmacy, to the bank, to mail a package, to gas up the car. He returns almost before it seems humanly possible. But together, my parents leave home rarely except to go to church, out to eat, or to do neighborly good deeds. Occasionally they see a movie, and of course there are doctor appointments, which eat up huge chunks of time. Home is where they really want to be, and I don’t blame them. Home is comfortable; the outside world tends to be far less so. In going out, the pay-off is too small, the hurdles too many. Unpleasantness abounds: heat, traffic, crowds, noise. If I live to be my parents’ age, I may well be a hermit. Those aforementioned factors, plus the chance of thunderstorms and the need to comfort my anxious dog, kept me at home last Saturday as H and D went to a Nationals game.
From the porch, a view of summer green.
Another thorny issue nagging at D was the dread of spending over a week in a technology vacuum. Several years ago, we presented my mother with an iMac for Christmas. Because we couldn’t be there to help her deal with the constant minor quandaries, and she didn’t want to be a bother to friends, she gave up. By the following Easter the iMac was back at our house. When I suggested to D that we had a unique opportunity to travel back in time, to experience the life of an earlier era, before household computers, cell phones, cordless phones, or Wi-Fi, she was unmoved. She didn’t want that kind of time travel. Her iPhone would be rendered nearly useless. She would be cut off from her network of friends. And, I realized, with some alarm, she would be primarily dependent on me for amusement. My husband, who is often as restless as a teenager, would be with us only for the first weekend. We needed to make some real plans, or suffer the consequences.
The backyard of my childhood home in Atlanta, like most of those in the neighborhood, is narrow but very deep. It has two distinct sections, which my friends and I differentiated in this way: the area just behind the house was the back; the more remote area was the way back. Sometimes, for emphasis, we called it the way, way back. The same terminology, of course, referred to the seating arrangements in those old station wagons from the 60s and 70s (including our 1965 Dodge Polara, with its rear-facing seat, as well as the one appearing in a current movie of the same name.)
We bought our house from a family with four children who played in every inch of that yard, as the numerous toy soldiers, cap guns, pen knives and dolls with mold-encrusted eyes, found in the unlikeliest places, attest. In 1968, when we moved in, the landscaping left much to be desired. There were a few azaleas and some dogwoods in a wide-open sea of scraggly weeds and spots of bare earth. We didn’t devote much time or thought to real gardening; we had more than enough to keep us busy with the ongoing renovation of the house and the rehabilitation of the extremely patchy front lawn. (See Morningside Begins its Comeback, July 2012.) But a mere four decades plus later, in the absence of an army of hard-charging children, nature has worked its own special magic. Behind the house now lies a sort of enchanted urban jungle.
It’s not that we stood by and did nothing. In that case the house would now be completely hidden by a tangled Sleeping Beauty thicket. Daddy has always been out there clipping and pulling weeds. Since his retirement, he has spent the greater portion of his waking hours combating the constant, determined creeping of the vigorous, semi-tropical plant life that thrives immediately outside the walls. If it’s daylight, Daddy is pruning, pulling ivy, gathering fallen sticks, clearing away the ongoing accumulation of natural debris. Nearest the house, in the back, Daddy’s efforts are keeping nature’s tentacles in check, to some degree. Atop the steps leading from the rock garden, there is a central area that to this day remains recognizable as an actual yard.
Further back, however, the battle has long since been lost. The way back luxuriates in a state of benign neglect. With my every summer visit, it’s substantially lusher, more enclosed, more overgrown. Every year, the vines have thickened, reached higher, delved deeper. Nature’s resolve to have its own way is everywhere in evidence.
When we bought the house, the way back was especially barren, strewn with pine straw and sprouting a few weeds. It was here that Daddy set up my red and green metal swing set. Brand shiny new when I was two, he assembled it behind the small house in suburban Lexington where I was born. While our family bounced around from Kentucky to North Carolina during Daddy’s graduate school years, the swing set found a temporary home beside the chicken lot at my grandparents’ farm. Once we settled in Atlanta, it settled there with us. In the theatrical production of my childhood that runs in my head, that old swing set is a crucial backdrop, an essential set piece. It boasted none of the fancy components seen in today’s typically elaborate play sets–no castle, fort, or climbing wall–just a two-person glider, a couple of swings, a trapeze and a slide. It was nothing special, but it was where my friends and I gathered. Located, as it was, in the remoteness of the way, way back, it was where we met to play, to pretend, to talk, to argue, to make plans. It was our place. A kids’ place.
The swing set, during a rare Atlanta snow, in 1983.
Not all memories the swing set conjures are idyllic ones. Several years during elementary school I struggled with the mind-gripping demons we now refer to neatly as OCD. It didn’t have a name back then. Thanks to the patience and understanding of my mother, who had experienced a similar near-insanity as a child, I managed not to fall apart completely. Mama sat at my bedside every night, when I’d tell her each worry, and she’d tell me not to worry. A general, all-encompassing “Don’t worry” meant nothing. I needed her to respond to each anxiety individually. It was exhausting for both of us, but she never complained. During the school day, when I was occupied, I was OK. I don’t think any of my buddies knew I was crazy. In the late afternoons, if I didn’t have the company of friends, the beasties roared back, preparing for the free-for-all of night. They often demanded my fealty in the isolation of the way back. I can see myself running yet one more time around the swing set, zipping joylessly down the slide again and again, touching the rusty spot on the top bar just once more. I have to do it. No, I didn’t touch it exactly right. I have to do it again. I’m a weary, restless, ten year old nervous wreck. Fortunately for me, that time passed. I either outgrew the demons, or they got bored and went on to torment another, more defenseless child, one without as compassionate a mother.
As a high schooler, having learned a few moves on the rickety uneven parallel bars during gym class, I used the high bar of the swing set to practice. With the picnic bench positioned below, I could propel myself onto the bar and execute back hip circles. I shudder to think how close I must have come, repeatedly, to flying off and breaking my back, my neck, or worse.
Vines, here in their early stages, are covered by snow.
During my college years, there were fewer hours to be whiled away in the way back, and nature asserted itself in earnest. The wooden seats of the glider rotted and disappeared. The slide weathered to a warm, rust red. A few vines, wisteria and grape, managed toe holds and began to wind their way up, across and over. One hard plastic swing was anchored in place by a vine that braided itself delicately along the length of the chain. Year by year, each element became more firmly rooted, more tightly entwined.
The vines might have held the swing set up for decades to come, had not a nearby giant tulip poplar been tossed onto the slide during a lightning storm. While one side is crumpled like a broken toy, the other still stands, held fast in the candy cane clasp of a massive wisteria vine. The glider is locked in place, as well, vine-trapped. Vinca, ivy, Virginia creeper and mahonia flourish along the ground. Unchecked plant growth closes in from every direction. Going on right now, and for the forseeable future, at least, it’s a wild foliage riot in the way, way back. In the midst of it all, my old swing set remains, ever more adorned, yet ever more fragile, a monument to simultaneous decay and growth. A monument to life, and its circle.
The state of the swing set, June 2013.The crumpled slide, embraced by foliage.
Way back when it was almost new: on the swing set at my grandparents’ place, 1967.
Shortly after the end of school, we flew to Atlanta for our annual summer visit. Just as we did last year, we opted for MARTA to save my parents a drive to and from the airport, and to protect everyone from the stress provoked by that alarming ride. (See Fun with Ground Transportation, July 2012.) We waited only a few minutes at the Arts Center station before we saw Daddy rounding the corner from 16th Street in his red station wagon. My generally healthy father had frightened us this spring by catching a persistent bug that required two hospitalizations and prevented him and Mama from traveling to Virginia for our daughter’s school musical. We hadn’t seen my parents since early November, and I had been increasingly aware of their absence. I felt a real sense of delight as I saw Daddy driving up, waving, and I’m sure, whistling. He tends to whistle when he’s happy.
It was the second day of summer, and the temperature was pleasantly spring-like. Atlanta’s signature oppressive heat was blessedly absent. The city was in glorious, fragrant late June bloom. Our visit coincided with an occurrence I’ve been saddened to miss for a decade or so: the blooming of the gardenia bush outside my old bedroom window. In years past, we’ve arrived in early July, just after the heyday, when the blossoms are withered and brown. It’s like reaching the home of old friends, only to find that they left a day earlier for a year-long journey. I found it reassuring to behold those familiar, powerfully sweet-smelling blooms, snowy and velvety white. The idyllic scent of summer, and of long childhood days (without air conditioning) will always live for me in the smell of gardenias.
Gardenia blossoms.Gardenias, seen from the window of my old bedroom.
The gardenias were only one group of voices in the welcoming symphony of fragrance that greeted us as we stepped out of the car. A stand of privet, much enlarged over the years, and at the height of its bloom, bent its dense and shady canopy over the driveway. Tall hedges of abelia, buzzing with bees, hugged both sides of the house. Enormous blossoms of magnolia in the next-door neighbor’s yard could be glimpsed and enjoyed. Leaning over the fence was a mimosa tree, covered with fluffy pink flowers borrowed from a Dr. Seuss book. A few late-blooming clusters of purple wisteria still remained. To my recollection, Atlanta had never smelled better, or appeared more beautiful. It sure felt good to be back in my hometown.
Privet canopy.Abelia.Mimosa.
Wisteria.
All this week, back in Virginia after our return, the words of this melancholy John Prine song have been echoing in my mind. It may be a while before I can lay myself down again the arms of my darling hometown. I hope I’ll go there in my dreams.
Far away over the sea there’s a river that’s calling to me. That river she runs all around the place that I call my hometown.
There’s a valley on the side of a hill and flowers on an old window sill. A familiar old picture, it seems, and I go there tonight in my dreams.
Where it’s green in the summer and gold in the fall Her eyes are as blue, as the sky, I recall.
Far away over the sea there’s a place at the table for me. Where laughter and music abound. It’s waiting there in my hometown.
The river, she freezes when there’s snow on the ground, and the children can slide to the far side of town.
Far away, far away me, hung up on a sweet memory. I’m lost and I wish I were found in the arms of my darlin’ hometown.
With the evening sun settin’ on the top of the hill and the mockingbird answering the old chapel bell.
Far away over the sea my heart is longing to be. And I wish I could lay myself down in the arms of my darlin’ hometown.
We arrived at our London destination around midnight. For the next few nights we would be bunking in a dormitory of King’s College Hall. Instead of five or six of us in a communal chamber, as before in France, each of us had our own tiny cell. The barren, ascetic rooms offered limited distraction, and you’d think this would have been our chance to get some rest. But no. Katie, Jackie and I stayed up that first night until around 3 AM, indulging in giddy doses of adolescent humor.
The next morning we were in a fog of drowsiness on a bus rolling through London. Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben, still black with the coal dust of a century and a half, were blurry, dream-like images dancing improbably before my eyes. Once we began our walking tour, I was sufficiently awake to be irked at not having more time to spend in the Abbey, and at seeing the Tower of London only from the outside.
That afternoon we went shopping at Selfridge’s and Marks & Spencer. According to my journal entry, I wasn’t especially impressed; I described them simply as large department stores similar to Atlanta’s now long-defunct Rich’s. I’ve never been an enthusiastic shopper. Postcards and guidebooks were my primary European purchases, but in Marks & Spencer, Rebecca and I bought identical fuzzy white wool sweaters. London meals and evenings are among the vaguest of my memories. I’m certain, though, that we prolonged our nightly festivities at the dorm until well into the morning hours.
On our second day in England, we were back on the bus, heading to Stratford-on-Avon. During the drive, we were all elated when snow began to fall. Snow! In April! This offered further, indisputable proof that we were very far from home. Has a snowflake ever fallen in Atlanta in April? Possibly, but if so, it was terribly lonely, and it melted immediately. The English countryside was as beautiful as that of France. Scenes worthy of Christmas cards were plentiful: medieval-style barns, peacefully grazing horses and sheep, neat, increasingly white fields criss-crossed with ancient rock walls. We stopped briefly in Oxford, where we got off the bus for a glance at Christ Church College. The visit was long enough for me to fall in love with this town of unbelievably gorgeous student housing, and to determine to get back there one day, when I could linger, and wander.
In Stratford, we hit the usual tourist attractions, including Shakespeare’s birthplace and the cottage of his wife, Anne Hathaway. That evening, many of us at last managed some sleep. Unfortunately it was during a performance of Shakespeare’s Henry V. We were not at all prepared for the play; we had no idea of the plot, the actors’ Elizabethan English was indecipherably foreign, and we weren’t anywhere near the action.
Outside Anne Hathaway’s cottage in Stratford.
After our extended nap in Shakespeare’s theatre, we headed back to London. The last thing I remember about the trip was our group assembling the next morning on the sidewalk in front of King’s College, awaiting the bus that would take us to Gatwick Airport.
The long trip home has completely dropped from my memory, and in a way, I’m glad. In the years since, I’ve learned that going home requires far more time than getting wherever it is we’re going. It also demands vaster sums of patience and fortitude. But in my mind, I can skip right over all those tiresome hours of waiting and traveling. Suddenly, I’m my fourteen year old self, hugging my young parents in Atlanta’s as yet unremodeled Hartsfield Airport. Soon we’d be turning into our driveway, and I’d see that the azaleas were in full bloom. Daddy would be unlocking the door to the back hall, and my dog Popi would be waiting at the top of the stairs. I’d look into his eyes and know that he missed me. I’d drop my bag in my room and look around at the familiar surroundings of home. I would be completely happy. Happy to be home. And happy to know that one day, somehow or other, I’d get back to those far-away places that now seemed a little closer.
Most of us were not ready for this photo, taken outside King’s College, but we were ready to go home. Our remarkable teacher, Mrs. Correll, smiling at back left, is her usual cheerful self.
After our night at the lycée in Saint-Malo (See European Vacation ’75, Part III), our group was back on the bus early the next morning, heading to Le Havre and the Channel for our crossing to England. I was surprised at the size and relative luxury of the ferry; I guess I had been expecting something bare-bones and rudimentary. I hadn’t imagined that it might house several restaurants, shops and comfortable lounge areas. It was fortunate that it was roomy and fairly pleasant, as the crossing took over six hours. My friends and I wandered freely all over the boat, exploring every level.
When someone discovered a door that led outside, we stumbled upon a real thrill: the open decks. We had never felt such a fierce, strong wind. We were amazed that we could lean into the wind at a sharp angle and remain there, without falling. With the wind behind us, we could jump and be carried as though in flight. Luckily, no one sailed over the railings into the icy waters of the Channel.
After a while, when we began to feel the chill, we noticed two teenage boys hanging around farther down the deck. They were older than we were, probably around sixteen, and they weren’t involved in wind experiments. We could hear their English accents. Evidently this Channel crossing was old hat to them. They soon walked by, ostentatiously ignoring us, trying to appear caught up in their own conversation. When we returned inside, we saw that they remained near the door, still deeply immersed in their dialogue. We began once again to ramble throughout the ship, to see if the boys would follow us. They did. We conspicuously refused to acknowledge their presence, and they did the same to us, despite trailing us at a distance.
After a meandering circuit of the ship, the boys climbed the stairs to the observatory lounge. We remained on the level below. Not long afterwards, several younger English boys appeared. They looked to be about twelve or so. After much heated whispering among themselves, with frequent glances in our direction, they shyly approached. It didn’t take long for them to start firing off questions: How old were we? Where did we live? After each couple of inquiries they would dash upstairs to the observatory, only to return quickly with more questions.
The older boys, apparently, had opted to send in scouts on a reconnaissance mission. Once the younger boys had run through all the questions they could think of, they revealed their purpose. They had been sent to report that there were two “lads” on the upper level who would like to meet us. Due to their accents, we couldn’t at first decipher the word “lads.” Two whats? Lads? Oh, lads! How unbelievably quaint! None of us had ever before been pursued by a “lad!”
Nevertheless, we weren’t interested in the elder lads. They appeared overly serious and lacking in humor. Tall and gangly, they verged on being men. Although we were flattered by the attention, we knew we had no business flirting with men, or almost-men. Looking back, I wonder at their interest in us, several goofy, wind-blown fourteen year olds. Maybe our American-ness gave us some cachet.
Jackie, Rebecca, me and the mighty wind.
The younger lads, though, were an altogether different type: funny, cute, spunky, sweet, smaller than we were, and non-threatening. Their Englishness was simultaneously exotic and reassuring. They reminded me of members of Fagin’s gang of urchins in the Disney movie, Oliver! We never went upstairs to meet the older boys, but spent considerable time chatting with the twelve-year olds. They told us they lived in Staffordshire and were returning from a school “holiday” in Normandy.
I talked primarily with a golden-haired, blue-eyed boy named Graeme Bailey. He gave me his address, which he wrote on a page torn from a small notebook. On the other side was his drawing of a soldier. The address was other-worldly and old-fashioned. It included only one number, and that was a single digit. In looks, in name (and its spelling), and in accent, Graeme was perfectly, enchantingly English. But because he was so open and approachable, before we said goodbye I felt as though I had known him for a long while.
That night, I wrote in my journal that this had been one of the best days of the trip, even though all we did was travel. As I remember, I was feeling rather elated, wide open to life’s possibilities. Before setting foot in Britain, I had met a quintessential English lad, one who took a friendly, cheerful interest in me.
I think I was beginning to grasp the transcendent power of travel. It’s a truly wonderful thing to experience first-hand the vastness and variety of our world’s natural and cultural beauty. This is certainly an adequate reason to roam the globe. But to me, the real power of travel is this: it reveals the depth and strength of the bonds that unite us as a human family. Custom, language, differences in physical appearance–these are simply thin layers of veneer, the candy coating on an M&M. No matter where we were born or where we live, we are more alike than different. This awareness equips us with a powerful force for living with compassion and understanding.
Our group was a few minutes late in returning to the bus after touring Mont Saint Michel. The Chickamaugans, hopping mad because of the delay, demanded an apology. I can’t remember if we apologized or not. If we did, I’m sure we managed to ooze contempt and condescension. Our traveling companions had clearly missed the magic of Mont Saint-Michel. That night we were to stay in nearby Saint-Malo in a French boarding school, empty over the Easter holidays. The trip to the Lycée Jacques Cartier didn’t take long. The school, in a pleasant wooded setting, consisted of long, low gray stone modernist buildings. It appeared to be very new at the time. We immediately went to dinner. In a big room adjacent to the dining hall were several huge round basins for washing hands. The water, controlled by foot levers, came out from the center in a smooth round sheet, as in some fountains. Bars of soap on metal rods extended out over the basin. Seven or eight people could wash their hands at once. It was the highest-tech lavatory we had ever seen. Dinner was unremarkable. After dinner we headed up to the dormitories. The girls all slept in one enormous room. Partitions that approached but did not reach the ceiling separated the space into smaller areas, each with six beds. My friend Jackie, her mother and I found ourselves rooming with three Chickamauga girls, much to our dismay. The bathrooms were of great interest. There were eight shower stalls and perhaps even more bidets (a word I misspelled biday throughout my journal), but only two toilets. Very strange, we thought, but consistent, as our hotel room in Paris had had a bidet but no toilet.
That night, of course, none of us was in the mood for sleep; the camp-like living quarters spoke to the fundamental need for teenagers to indulge in late-night antics. Our Chickamauga roommates seemed to have forgotten their animosity toward us after the bus incident, and we gained a new appreciation for them. They entertained the crowd with comically rendered country songs, liberally borrowing from episodes of the TV show Hee-Haw. My friends and I considered ourselves too cosmopolitan to admit to watching that show, but we had to say that the Chickamaugans could have starred in it. They had the requisite country twangs, the goofy, expansive personalities, and they really sang well together.
After the North Georgians had concluded their performance, Jackie and I joined Katie and Rebecca in the room they shared with other friends from our school. We were engaged in some sort of forgotten silliness when one of us happened to look out the window and notice several boys hanging around outside. We didn’t know them; they were evidently French locals. This was an unexpected and exciting development. My memory of what follows is hazy, and my journal, surprisingly, doesn’t record the details. My guess is that windows were opened, and intercultural flirting began. The boys felt sufficiently encouraged that they tried to scale the building and climb in the windows. Seems like I remember one of them standing on a portion of the lower roof. When it looked like they were really planning to storm the barricades, our group tried to backtrack. We didn’t really plan to invite them in. How do you say Never mind in French? I assume we locked the windows and hissed Arretez!Allez-vous!Va t’en! The commotion awakened one of our chaperones. She addressed the boys with severe words, the gist of which was unmistakable no matter the language. After they had retreated and disappeared, she treated us to similarly severe words and herded us back to our little beds.
Although Jackie and I returned to our room, we still had no intention of sleeping. We sneaked off quietly to the expansive bathrooms, hoping for further distraction. To our delight, we found a couple of forgotten bras hanging on hooks outside the shower stalls. They were for full-figured girls, unlike us, and made for ideal comic props. Whatever we did with those bras (and I can’t remember), it was the height of middle-school hilarity. It must have been near 3 AM when we returned to our cubicle. I had never been to sleep-away summer camp, and I never would go, but that night, I got an exhilarating taste of it.
It was Jackie’s birthday yesterday. After all these years, when we get together, we still tend to stay up late, talking and laughing. The difference is that today, we catch up on the current events of our lives while also reveling in so much shared history. It’s one of the nicer things about growing older. It makes the present moment all the sweeter.
On the bus to Normandy, once again my friends and I battled the urge to close our eyes in sleep. Mrs. Correll resumed her patrol duty, walking the aisle, tapping shoulders, urgently entreating us: Wake up! Dont’ miss the beautiful French countryside! As soon as I noticed the loveliness of the landscape we were passing through, I had no more trouble fighting drowsiness. This was the idyllic countryside of fairy tales: rolling hills, pastures and fields neatly enclosed by fences and hedgerows, small cottages, many with thatched roofs and ivy-covered stone walls, the occasional grand manor house. The chic Parisians had disappeared, replaced by timeless country folk engaged in timeless pastoral activities, like the farmer above, carrying a hay bale on his back. We saw French sheep, horses, cows and dogs. They looked somehow more charming and worldly-wise than their Georgia or Kentucky counterparts. It was cold outside, but the sun was bright and the land was poised for the greening of spring.
The drive took nearly four hours. We shared the bus with a larger group of high school students from the north Georgia town of Chickamauga. The French countryside evidently held little charm for them. Restless and bored, they whiled away the time by pining for the far-away, all-American life. They bemoaned the typically much-missed delights: juicy hamburgers, thick steaks, “real” toilet paper, cold Cokes, water with ice. Mrs. Correll had made it clear to us well before the trip that if we uttered such clichés we would risk her wrath. She would not hear us talking like ugly Americans. We were a sophisticated group, she stressed. We knew we weren’t especially sophisticated, but we didn’t want to disappoint the teacher we revered. Seeing the Chickamaugans behaving boorishly inspired us to try to act cultured and urbane. We considered them to be country bumpkins. I’m sure they thought of us as annoying little city twits.
Mont Saint-Michel, seen from our bus window.
My first glimpse of Mont St. Michel was magical. I was not alone; the vision was sufficient to switch the Chickamaugans’ attention away from the pleasures of home. I’ve returned to Normandy twice over the years, and each time, the initial sighting of that towering castle-church on the rock, rising out of an immensity of flat sand, retains its unique power.
According to medieval texts that recount the beginnings of Mont Saint-Michel, in the eighth century, the archangel Saint Michael appeared in a dream to Aubert, Bishop of nearby Avranches. He commanded Aubert to build him a church upon the rock. When difficulties arose, as one might expect with such a tricky architectural undertaking, the archangel was said to have worked miracles that allowed building to continue. Aubert’s church was consecrated in 708, and word spread of the majestically situated church divinely ordained by an angel.
By the twelfth century, Mont Saint-Michel had become one of Europe’s premiere pilgrimage destinations. In an age that valued visible, tangible relics of a saint’s earthly life, an angel might seem an unlikely candidate to become a popular pilgrimage saint. Saint Michael, a heavenly creature who never dwelt on earth, could offer no bones, blood, hair or instrument of torture to be venerated. But Aubert and those who succeeded him in tending the shrine were creative and enterprising; if the people wanted relics, they would have relics.
Some pilgrims may have come for the relics. Probably more came to soak up the romance of the place itself. Its exceptional location and the drama inherent in the site offers its own enchantment. Thrill-seekers made the pilgrimage because it entailed risk and adventure. Getting to the church on the rock meant navigating the bay’s capriciously shifting sands and the rushing tides that transformed the mount into an island twice daily. There was also the danger of losing one’s way when the thick fog settled in.
The church and the buildings of its surrounding village seem to grow from the rock.
A series of fires required sucessive rebuildings. With each disaster, reputed miracles were interpreted as proof of Saint Michael’s continuing support. He had not abandoned the site. On the contrary, he required a bigger, taller church. The Benedictine Abbey that stands today was begun in 1023. While portions of this Romanesque building remain, most of the church dates from the Gothic period. The archangel was traditionally worshipped in high and lonely spots, and the church that evolved over the centuries might be seen as a sort of architectural portrait of Saint Michael. The building’s massive heaviness and its apparent unity with the rock reflect the military saint’s enduring strength, while its soaring height stretches toward his heavenly domain. On stormy nights, as lightning struck, wind howled and thunder rumbled, the medieval faithful claimed to witness the archangel’s battle with Satan at the top of the mount.
That chilly April day in 1975, our group hadn’t had to brave the elements to reach Mont Saint-Michel. We weren’t exhausted from months of walking in all weathers and through difficult terrains. But we were tired of sitting, and delighted to get off the bus. As we hurried along the causeway, a few of us may have been nearly as excited as some pilgrims before us. The view of the mount retained its drama even at close range. Winding our way up the narrow, cobblestoned street, the adventure continued. The story-book town, with its tightly packed medieval buildings, the upper levels jutting out above those below, was quaint yet scruffily authentic, not a plastic Disneyesque quaint. Inside the church, the shadowy crypts, cut into the depths of the rock, were austere and fortress-like, making the soaring nave, with its pointed Norman arches and tall clerestory windows, appear all the more gloriously luminous.
Dusk was approaching as we climbed to the top of the ramparts to look out over the vast expanse of sand and sea below. The wind was picking up. There was no lightning, but the atmosphere felt charged. That night, we did not see Saint Michael engaged in a furious war with the devil, but the possibility didn’t seem at all far-fetched. What a spectacular sequel to our Super-8 movie Dark Secrets we could have shot at Mont Saint-Michel!
This all-encompassing view of Mont Saint Michel was taken by a neighbor in 1937.
A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.
