Goat-shit Crevice a.k.a. The Cave of Indecision
Stuck in a damp crack with a cold Cat, making a nest from last season’s fern after sweeping out the feral devil’s dumplings. Shattered from yesterday’s epic trek from our castle-fort in Tangled Wood to the village inn at Lynmouth. A walk described as ‘moderate’ in our faithful guide, estimated to take 5.5 hours; it took us through 12 hours, at least 3 breaking points, a good few ‘Devon Miles’ and around 13 ‘lengths-generally-accepted-as-miles’ (see, distance is a bit like time in that duration is subjective). I don’t think the people who wrote the book were carrying their homes on their backs – either that or they’re giants – couldn’t see a giant fitting more than a big toe on some of them paths though: cut into the curve on the edge of the world, huge waves like tiny wrinkles on the sky-rug way below.
Tangled Wood led us on to the tiny village of Culbone, its ancient church reputed to have served a leper colony way back in once-upon-a; unfortunately however, evil gabbering day-walkers came trunkling down the coombe in a hideous fluorescent troop and scared us off before we could perform more than a cursory survey of the grounds: graves dating back to the early 1800s, the surname ‘Red’ holding the vast majority of places, most recent Red death in 2004. We left the cool air of the valley-snuggled settlement (conditioned by a gurgling stream) and carried on up the coombe – felt like a thousand feet up by the time we sweaties reached the top, ascending through moss and rock and sunshine through sparse spring leaves.
We passed along the top of a wee valley on Yenworthy Farm and considered calling it a day right there – well out of the way and begging to be explored – another of Mother Nature’s glistening jewelled vaginas, filled with tickling beasts & tree-hair & gallivanting rivers of Amrita – but we passed it up, the path calling ever funward through mossy forests fish-eyed by the sea… feel like I’ve never been so high, and getting high now, every time I eat – this sudden sugary surge as starvation cessates (many times a day).
On through the ‘unusually mature’ stately pines of Pinetum, haloed by a prehistoric sun. A gaggle of hard-hatted happy kids led splashing upstream as we scuffle downhill – a “Howdy” to their “Cowboys!” (darn these matching leather hats!) Then round-the-bend and back uphill to breaking point, pushing off my thighs with my hands to gasp another foot in. Cat really not having fun anymore – burst blisters rubbing muscles burning hormones raging statements biting the mouth that’s chomping at the bit! I enjoy being cheesily happy in the face of great adversity, but decide not to push it.
Caitriona’s voice:
“Each inch pinched more than the last, each gasp punctuating the curses spent out of bursting calves. Like old elephants sewn into turtle shells we climbed again, each time believing this crest would bring a place to rest, my eyes child-welling as I looked upon another ascent. Narrow paths lined with moss-soaked trees, such age and wisdom shown in their angled grasps of the wind, clear streams balancing dust and leaves, an original description of ease which on closer inspection reveals to me that these sights of blessed pleasure must rely on mother nature – their place was found through trial and error – my place in them, my joy at seeing every scene, is fair reward for aching limbs.”
We reach a place so beautiful that I’m looking at it for a time before it actually appears: Sisters Fountain, where legend-has-it Jesus drank with Joseph of Arimithea. The water is crystal clear and makes the possibility physically apprehensible – the sense of refreshment as sharp as the hawthorns that cover the hill just beyond. A huge stone crucifix sits stubbornly in the dappled shade while a pump in a small corrugated-iron shed contributes a regular thud: a watery resonating kick-drum at a tempo where relaxation excites. I play absent-mindedly with the paving stones either side of the fountain, shifting my balance to make them bounce with an off-centre step, they settle-twang with an effortless comedy.
Caitriona is speechless -
mind like
a wind-tickled tree.
Caitriona is…
Shhhhhhhhhhh
“…paths so old and often cloud-bound that every surface is tapestried, a history of growing moss and lichen flowing over stone and boulder, clothing weathered branches, making movements more ball-gown than broom…”
More lushness at the edge-of-the-world: simultaneously scared to look down and pleased that there are still places in this fair land of molly-coddle where you can walk but a missteps breadth from death. On! And ever on! Shifting hefty many knuckled bag-fist from back-pit to bruised back-pit! One foot in front of the other in front of the other TRIP! Ankle wiggle glory breath ball foot fuck hurt!!!
But – y’know – worth it.
“These are the times you actually get fit.”
(As I told the good lady one time too many…)
We got into Lynmouth as darkness fell. Will never forget rounding yet another moor-cliff-mountain-hill to see it tucked inside the day’s last mist, shy in the diffused gleam of the setting sun – still three final miles away!
(So much fuel has fed the feet that words come out in halves and unplanned combinations,
stumbling tungs… spelt wrong.)
We headed for the sparkly lights and sharp fizz of cider, couldn’t find accommodation this late in the book but the pub we were in was an inn – well above budget but better than pitching on tarmac. They weren’t officially open for lodgers but agreed to admit us, wouldn’t make us dinner though – seems the cook had already washed up…
Ingeniously, instead of heading up to our room and eating something, we decided to head down to the mouth and celebrate with a spliff on the sea wall – I remember saying, after the sudden wave of sickly weakness that swept in with my long-held final toke, as I was slowly toppling sideways, quite unable to be concerned, thus in a calm and apparently jokey tone:
“I am losing my consciousness…”
and there it went.
. . .
I came to about forty seconds later with my head in the lap of my dear Caitriona, looking up into her sweetly concerned face as she asked if I could see her – I’m not certain I replied, but when I tried to sit up and apologise, she said:
“Hmmm… better get down off this wall.”
We sat on a bench but I was still slipping away, black bubbles blinking clean like brain-sherbet. I was fighting to stay conscious. Stand up and stamp was my stubborn and head-strikingly daft decision. All blood like a waterfall to the aching balls of my sore old soles -
Cat part catches my limp body but
jelly neck
delivers head
to paving slab C R A C K . . !
But this time consciousness does not fully depart:
I AM
jolt-shifted to a parallel plane of perception
trying to wake myself up
looking down into a mercury puddle
being pulled up and saying hello
to the bustle of future-past people-places
in the rainbow black
geometric ripple-wrapping
of a dimensional cross-section.
…?…
…Me…
…Cat…
…Lynmouth…
…Fall!
Today touching or wobbling my head makes a dull pain throb. Sat here in the Cave of Indecision, having to admit that it’s cold, and will get colder – but it never gets any less magnetic! The sheer easy peaceful terrifying magic! And we would survive (if not have an entirely comfortable night) and for our toil and sacrifice perhaps be rewarded by the rising of the sun over the ocean behind the stacks of wise old faces piled high in the valley of rocks.
“Feeding each other with our indecision we snapped nerves and ached ligaments as we wrestled with what seemed to be a cubing rubixed problem: I’m sensitive and anxious, shocked by each pain into a stubborn resentment; I want a predetermined bed place, I want to be warm; I’m tired, I ache, I have my period and I’m sick of it – he is slightly concussed from losing consciousness, doesn’t really want to go anywhere in response to neck pains and shoulder aches, just wants to sit out in the cold (or that’s how it seems to me). We found a spot quite early on just out of town – it should have done – granted it was cold and full of poo – but…”
“Should we stay here?”
“…we made a day nest good – and mostly left it cause I thought we should.”
If I don’t see a seagull for the duration of this coffee then yes…
Six seagulls soon sail round the headland.
If those berries are juniper then yes…
‘Food for Free’ says they ain’t.
*
We fly our nest
as the sun finally sets
below the low thick cloud-bar
way out west.
Having climbed to the top,
looked out along the next of our lot:
“You can say
you never can
but you can’t
never not.”
*