Tomorrow will be my first day back as a teacher, and so it seems appropriate and necessary to close with my final thoughts sifted through the lens of my days back in Texas.  My first impulses are of gratitude to Fund for Teachers for making this trip possible.  They provided the entire ticket, which left me free to experience and record what was wholly  unforgettable.   They knew it would put me back on the map to be charted by my students in the years to come.

I dance with perspective as I look back to Cumbria.  I can see it through the eyes of poets and peasants, sheep and cattle, mice and dung beetles.  I know it from those moments when I was lost, from the crooked rings on the map, and from the compass.  I can feel it in the stillness of the mountain tarn, in the thick mist at the top of a pass, under the arms of a footpath sign, through a gate, and despite the stubborn rubble beneath my boots.  I can hear it in the silence of the moors, the howling of the wind, the bleating of the lambs, the lowing of the cows and the constant song of water somewhere deeply underfoot.  Only feet away from finding a lamb that had lost its way, I found mine.  The difference between me and the mountains became negligible.  I know why the poets came here.

 To walk the Lake District requires enormous energy, faith, and tenacity.  Although it shows no favors with the mist, the rain, and the wind, its beauty belongs in books and dreams.  The writers who walked here may have arrived world-weary, but left, like me, full-hearted.  There is a part of me I left behind above Stony Tarn.  It was in a moment when I forgot where the landscape ended and I began.

O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among – whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
‘ Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d,
Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

John Keats, 1815 or 1816

It was with terrific reluctance that I headed toward home via London.  Cumbria had spoiled me, and I was dragging my feet out of the damp sod and rocky hills and onto concrete and into civilization.  A day and a half in the big city would make a miserable broad brush, so I decided to work in small strokes.  I teach Tale of Two Cities to my sophomore high school students, and so I mapped my course with Charles Dickens in mind.  I bought a day pass for the Underground and headed for the Dickens Museum, the home where he lived briefly,

 but nevertheless produced Nicholas Nickleby and the book that took me from Nancy Drew and into the world, Oliver Twist. 

And yes, I ran my hands over the desk where the book was born and delivered.  “Please sir, I want some more.” 

My 10^th graders will follow Dr. Manette from Paris to his lodgings in London  where he lived in a ‘In a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where a plane tree rustled its green leaves, church organs claimed to be made, and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall… as if he had beaten himself precious…’   The Dickens Museum houses the golden arm that was mounted outside the building in Soho where Dickens imagined Lucy and her father would live.  For those of you who did not, at 13, crouch in the graveyard fog with Pip, this may not impress you, but I was spellbound.  Dickens also lived not far from Virginia Woolf’s home in Bloomsbury, though only signs show where these addresses might once have been.  I walked down Fleet Street and Chancery Lane, past Temple Bar in the company, I imagined, of Jerry Cruncher, the messenger for Tellson’s bank in Tale of Two Cities.

I also found on this trip ”Nancy’s Steps” along the Embankment near the restoration of the Golden Hind (captained by Sir Francis Drake), so called because of the fateful conversation the led to the lovable prostitute’s death by her wicked lover, Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist.   Each time I read it I’d hoped it would end diffently for Nancy for all the love she’d shown the orphan, but it  never did.  Although I usually make it my business to be present and mindful, I was totally lost in fiction and history.  There was still ahead of me the spectre of going home.

We left our lodge in Windemere early in the morning to catch the 4 trains – including a steam train –  that would take us to Haworth in time to drop off our bags at the refreshingly civilized B&B overlooking the moors and then visit the famous Bronte Parsonage.  The streets were cobbled, the village quaint and the museum full of manuscripts, notes, sketches, memorabilia and even childish doodling on the walls.  In addition to first editions of Villette, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights,  several of the miniature books Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne wrote as children for their toy soldiers are kept behind glass.

And yes, I stood in the grass back of the Bronte Parsonage, summoned up my most primal voice- which was pretty close to the skin after my time in the Lake District – and yelled “Heathcliff!” at the top of my lungs. It was the single romantic moment in a day spent coming to terms with the short lives and amazing talent of 3 sisters and their errant brother Branwell who as an adult  had to sleep in his father’s bedroom to reduce the likelihood that he would do harm to himself or his own family in the middle of the night.  He was Bertha, the mad wife in Jane Eyre. 

In the Bronte’s novels, several of the principal characters are orphans, and death appears with shocking frequency, but for these writers death was sadly commonplace, and the losses experienced by the Bronte family were not exceptional.  Emily’s mother died of tuberculosis when Anne was only 20 months old.  Her two eldest sisters would die 4 years later before they reached the age of 12.  Both Emily and Anne died within a year of the publication of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, Emily at 30 and Anne 29.  Branwell had died two months before them at the age of 31. Charlotte would survive them and author four novels, only to die 9 months after her marriage. Although consumption was the common killer in this family, typhus at the time was also a problem, and cholera enjoyed an occasional outburst until the connection between the disease and polluted water was made mid-century.  There were no sewers and the mismanagement of the burial of so many dead in the small cemetery in Haworth created its own septic nightmare.  42% of Haworth’s children died before the age of 6. 

Nevertheless, when Emily would foray into the world, though less often or far as her sister Charlotte, she would grow nearly ill from the absence.  She wrote:

The house is old, the trees are bare

And moonless bends the misty dome

But what on earth is half so dear,

So longed for as the hearth of home.

To bring us back into the 21^th century, and full circle from my opening page where I owe Ted Hughes for the title of my blog,  I’ve copied here one of his poems  which was included in the photographic exhibit at the Parsonage:

 “Emily Bronte”

By Ted Hughes

The wind on Crow Hill was her darling.
His fierce, high tide in her ear was her secret.
But his kiss was fatal.Through her dark Paradise ran
The stream she loved too well
That bit her breast.

The shaggy sodden king of that kingdom
Followed through the wall
And lay on her love-sick bed.

The curlew trod her womb.

The stone swelled under her heart.

Her death is a baby-cry on the moor.

From Elmet

1979, Faber and Faber

From the window of Wasdale Head Lodge, our last hike through the Lake district looked like a winding sandy stripe up the mountains ahead.  After polishing off a plate of scrambled eggs on brown toast,  local jam and generous squares of fresh butter, we packed our rucksacks for rain, sun, heat and chill.   Cows ready to calve complained in the distance, lambs bleated to protest walkers approaching the paths.  We could see where we were going.  That changed. Even more so upon reflection it was a sobering day.  The next day the volunteer on the Carlisle-Settle scenic railway would tell us that the number of deaths on the fells each year was both sad and significant.  When we told him where we’d been, he congratulated our efforts.

With our trail just ahead that morning, we passed by the graves of those who’d met with disaster, then went through the gates that would take us through the pass.  Our notes said the “normal” path was high and steep, but the alternate, “friendly” path depended on good weather for stream crossings and navigation.  The weather forecast was questionable, and we’d decided to get an early start.  Mist can cause you to lose your trail; rain – beyond the discomfort we were ready for with over-trousers and rucksack covers – could make for a dangerously slippery journey..  The climb, as we started, was cloudy, but clear.  

Styhead pass is a popular trail, but as we hiked higher and higher, the only hikers we saw were those below us who were walking along the stream.  We would meet at the mountain rescue box several hours later. Somewhere before then we must have lost our path, over-estimated our abilities, or misunderstood. 

At our first meeting I’d asked my contact from Lakeland Ramblers if it were actually possible to get lost.  I remember his expression, eyebrows raised, as he said, “yes,” with certainty.  As we rounded the rocky shoulder of the mountain, we actually had an “ all four’s” section where we crawled along  the narrow ledge of skree and around jagged crags.  There are no photos of this section of the hike; I needed my hands and all my attention. 

  Thankfully, the weather was with us.  I was grateful for my new boots. We were foolish and lucky and alive. 

And foremost in my mind was the walking tour of those writers who made this space their inspiration.  Rugged, impulsive, unflappable, vigorous.   This was their stage. A bit dangerous, capricious, stirring, and unbelievably beautiful.

We took a launch from Lodore Falls of Southey fame to Keswick, where Coleridge lived unhappily and stole away on a moonlit night to Grasmere across the mountains to visit  Wordsworth’s home.  Ultimtely Southey, Coleridge’s brother-in-law, would take care of the poet’s family when he would disappear entirely and lapse in to his sad, laudanum addiction. 

A bus ride back to Windemere would bring me to  my last night in the Lake District, where so much poetic passion was felt and expressed.  This is a land of lakes and mist, rain and clouds, patches of sun on rocky ridges, open moors, sheep and swallows and miles and miles of stone fences.

It is said that the Herdwick sheep that are always outside our window or on or by the footpath originally arrived via a stranded Norse boat, were found among the wreckage of the Armada or – less gloriously – they are indigenous.  No matter.   Twice a year they are brought down the mountains by herding dogs to be shorn or sold.  The sheep – and their lambs -  know their  territory, and, although they appear to be milling about aimlessly, they never leave their area.  We later learned from veteran “walkers” (the average age of a walking group in the Settle area is 70 years old) that they are often called upon to rescue sheep whose coats have gotten so besotted with rain water that they can’t get up.  It sometimes takes 4 men to roll the sheep back to standing.  I’ve grown quite fond of these creatures and even accustomed to being awakened by their bleating at 4 in the morning when the sun comes up.  Today on our walk it was remarkably sad to see a small lamb that had recently died.  This is rugged country.

The variety of our walks has been remarkable  and this was no exception.  We were in open moorland for much of our walk, and although the ascent was not remarkable, it made navigation essential.  The trail was often tenuous and the compass and map were critical, but it was a beautiful day in the mountains.  We walked past old huts where they used to cut and dry peat for fires.  Several of them had fortified roofs to serve as shelter for the sheep; others were crumbled and caved in.  

 We hunted for stone circles and finally found them in the grass – prehistoric markings for what is thought were burial grounds.  It took longer than we thought it would to reach the Burnwood Tarn (lake) and there were moments when we realized we weren’t sure we knew where we were. 

  It was a relief when we reached the top of the ridge and there it was to the north, just as it should have been. 

Walking toward the tarn, we were challenged by a black bullock who was not interested in moving away from the path and watched us every step as we carefully walked around him.  What we found farther from the path may have explained it:  a recently stillborn calf.  It is easy to look at the fetches of green and gold and wax romantic, but today was marked by a sense of mortality, from the stillborn, the newborn and the buried.  And our moments of feeling lost in the fields, far from the tarn were somehow a fitting re-adjustment to our place here.  We are not guests; we are as much a part of this as any living thing.

Farther past the tarn we could see our Inn at the head of the inky Wasdale lake  The Wordsworths, Coleridge, Lewis Carroll had all passed this way before us.  The sense of impermanence was palpable.

We took a day off from hiking to ride the narrow gauge train into Ravenglass, once a major port on the Irish Sea.  Now the estuaries are so silted and the tide so unforgiving, that the town seems eerily quiet, and  boats, tethered by sagging lines buried in the sand, stand on their leggy keels like lonely shore birds.

It was a good day to get off our feet and let the steam engine do the work.  Right next to the station is a forested walk along public footpaths that lead to  the remnants of Roman Baths for what used to be a seaside fortification.  Rabbits and ground-nesting birds live along the path we followed to Muncaster Castle that was built about 1000 years later around the time of the Norman Conquest. 

 It has always been and still is owned by the Pennington family whose gardens and efforts in the preservation of endangered owls is as remarkable as the castle itself. 

When we stopped for lunch at their outdoor cafe (with vegetables from their on-site garden) we had a visit from a familiar face – I had recognized his portrait from the great hall:  Patrick Gordon-Duff Pennington, Lord, patron, landowner, politician, lobbyist and poet.  He stopped to chat with us at length and as our conversation ended, he recited a poem he had written about his homeland of Scotland.  I can’t quote from it because I couldn’t find it in the slim book of verse I found in the shop there, but having taken quite a shine to wagtails myself (a small white-masked black bird that wags its tail), here is part of his poem, “A Pair of Grey Wagtails Outside my Office Window:”    If I could have my needs fulfilled/I would retire/And maybe write a song or two,/And marry you./But as it is/I have to balance books,/Plant flowers occasionally,/Have conversation with the public/in the afternoons,/Making pretence of happiness/Until that distant date that’s undefined/When I am free to come to you./I sit in offices.  Outisde my own/I watch a pair of grey and yellow wagtails line their nest/Across the yard,envying them/For all the silent certainty of spring.”

I will miss Susannah’s breakfast of scrambled eggs piled high on top of buttered toast.  That was fuel for our morning hike from Coniston to Seathwaite where we would be picked up and driven to Boot (I’m not kidding) near Eskdale.   Other than our wonderful B&B,  The Brooks House Inn, there isn’t much here other than (more) sheep and stone walls and views of the Valley that are unbelievably beautiful patchworks of forests, stone enclosures and open moors.  Coleridge stayed the night very near here after a frightening descent from Scafell, a peak not far from where we will be hiking on Monday.  The stone walls that stamp the countryside were built by farmers, landowners and hungry  Irish families in response to the Enclosure Act.  This was not kind to the common man, but more recent legislation has opened access to lands all

over the country so that public footpaths and bridleways are nearly at every corner, making “walking” nearly a national sport.

Our route notes today were full of descriptions like “steep ascent,” “zigzag,” “winds steeply,” and finally “steeper zigzag ascent.”   We ended up in the clouds at Walna Scar, that point in the mountains where you leave behind the long stretch of Coniston Water, a steely silver sliver in the distance,  for a view of the Dunnerdale Valley. Wordsworth wrote a sequence of 34 sonnets about this valley, and I tried to picture William and Dorothy, remarkable walkers, who walked much farther than this in a day, he in his tweed coat, she in her long dress, with only a rudimentary map. 

 Coleridge also hiked through the valley, sometimes getting lost, as he did in August, 1802.  Years later, an old man in 1844, Wordsworth returned to this area with his wife and remembered with a sad nostalgia earlier years peopled with those friends he had outlived and lost, in spite of which “Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide.”

The trek down on a path of broken shale followed a ridge and eventually descended to the road where we had a choice:  left to the pub at Seathwaite, where a late lunch might await us, and right, where the driver pulled up with our luggage, ready to drive us through the harrowing Hardknott Pass to the Inn.  The ride was alluring, and hot food he assured us would be ready when we arrived.  After fighting the wind, at times the mist, the rocky footpath and nearly always a bit of a chill, the drive there was a break for our sore feet and weary thighs, but it was also a bit alarming. All roads here are basically one lane, some narrowing down between rock walls and streams, and plenty of hairpin switchbacks with foxgloves and ferns for guard rails.  When oncoming traffic came, we pulled over, they pulled over, we slowly passed doorknob to doorknob, or one of us backed up.  When we asked our driver Greg about his strategy, he said he simply hopes for the best.  En route to Boot we passed the remains of the Hardknott Roman Fort built, you guessed it, during the reign of Hadrian perched strategically, and with a view to die for.

A Renaissance man, the Victorian writer, critic and artist John Ruskin spent the last 28 years of his long life at Brantwood, his beautiful home across the Coniston Water.  To get there, we took a rebuilt Victorian steam powered launch, the Gondola.  Instead of burning coal, the boat’s boilers burn compressed waste wood logs, reducing her carbon footprint by 90%.   

This area was a Mecca for writers and artists during England’s Victorian period, and across the lake, and our Gondola swept by the shores where Tennyson had also lived.

 In addition to being an artist, Ruskin evolved into an art critic.  He was a botanist who asked that we look at plants without limiting ourselves to categories, names and words, but to see them with fresh eyes.  His studies of geology were more akin to philosophy: upon inspecting a stone, we would find the mountain in it.  He was a social activist, coming down from his ivory tower of wealth (his father was a sherry merchant and he inherited a considerable fortune) to champion the cause of the common man.  During a period of time when there were few labor laws, he despaired that the Industrial Revolution was making people into tools; England had become a nation that produced all manner of goods, but no men.  His ideas did not gain a significant following during his lifetime, but they were ultimately codified in labor laws, social security, and the National Trust to name only a few.  Stamped in several places around Brantwood is his famous saying, “The only wealth is life.”

Locals have added their two pence to our experience.  For example, Wordsworth is not appreciated in the Lake District for having the environmental foresight to stop the trains from coming through; the English see that as a terrific loss because buses must run travelers and residents around much of Cumbria, and train fares are unreasonable.  From our wonderful B&B owner of the Dixon Ground Farm Inn, Susannah, we learned that Ruskin was no saint. After reading up on Beatrix Potter, I think her imagination made her not just a little unusual.  Would Coleridge’s genius have given us “Kubla Khan” without his laudanum habit?  I think, like the stone, if we look at every genius, we can see the human in him.

Gregg, the taxi driver,  picked up our bags after breakfast.  We forgot where we were and tried  to climb into his cab, but he shooed us away and made us adjust our backpacks and tough it out to Bowness where we would catch our ferry to the other side of Windemere Lake. 

 There we met the path that would ultimately take us to Hawkshead, home of Beatrix Potter and at one point, Wordworth who was a school boy here.

I won’t go so far as to say that the sun was shining, but it wasn’t raining when we took off on a walkway developed by the National Trust. 

 We went through “kissing gates” and  fences designed to keep the livestock where they belonged, and sometimes that meant sheep and cows shared our fields and dales, bleating and greeting as we walked past.  

My thoughts on Beatrix Potter were lodged in memories of reading to my children, now 18 and older, so my interest in seeing her Hill Top Farm was minimal; however, once there I was amazed to realize what an artist she really was, and frankly it was delightful to see the actual backdrop of Farmer McGregor’s Garden and Jemima Puddleduck’s stomping grounds.

We had great “road notes” and topographical maps, and a compass, but there were times when we got a bit confused – as when we decided against the harrowing looking shortcut,” only to mistake it for a trail later on and took it backwards to return to where we’d already been.

I’m not sure we got to Hawkshead on the road we were supposed to, but we found it nonetheless, 5 hours after we’d started, having allowed plenty of time for photos and pausing to look back at where we’d been. 

The mist turned into drizzle by the time we got to Hawkshead.  Although we were starving, lunch closed at 1:30 and sadly, it was 3.  We found a cheese sandwich was ample fuel and appreciated the drying out time before we found the school where Wordsworth and his brothers were pupils far from home, as well as the house where he was a border those same years.  Thanks to a thoughtful local who saw us oblivious to the passing time, we caught the last bus to Coniston.

Our legs were tired, feet aching and I looked a bit like a damp sheep when we found our bed and breakfast, Dixon Ground Farm and its proprietor, Susannah who offered to dry our clothes and directed us to the Red Bull Pub for dinner.  That’s where the action was, and plenty of it, warm and noisy and we had a hot and filling meal that of course included potatoes.  Back at the B&B  a warm shower would take away the aches and chill of the day,  and though the sun was still up at 10 PM,  we weren’t.

Tomorrow, a day in Coniston.  We’ll give up our hiking for a walk through the village after a breakfast of farm fresh eggs, a stroll around the lake, and a visit to the Ruskin Museum.

I took an early bus to Rydal Mount to get there when it opened, but the rain was probably more of a key to keeping the crowd down.  There were only two of us on board the #599 and three of us had Wordsworth’s final home to ourselves. 

  Much more spacious and full of light than tiny Dove Cottage, this home was certainly a sign of his success, fame and prosperity.  During the years he was here he buried three children, his brother died in military service, and he wrote his famous “daffodils” poem.  The museums here are quite willing to admit that two of his most famous lines here were taken from his sister Dorothy’s journals; Coleridge said they were the best lines of the poem, but then their friendship didn’t last – that sounds flippant.  Their creative relationship was actually one of the most important in British literary history with the production of the Lyrical Ballads that signals the beginning of the Romantic Period, and Coleridge’s constant visits were doubtless energizing, albeit sometimes troubling.  Certainly one would not have been the same – or even perhaps as great – without the other.

The rain retreated by the time I walked out into the gardens and left behind the discipline of the home inside for  his daughter Dora’s meandering  terrace, damp paths that wandered to the water,  rough hewn stepping stones, foxglove blossoms inspected by noisy bees, ferns, firs, moss and magic. 

My pants were damp no matter the angle of my umbrella, and as my ramble starts tomorrow, and the weather forecast shows no improvement,  I walked toward the town of Bowness to buy some waterproof outerwear.  I think I’m going to spend the next week wet and cold and sometimes in the clouds.

The Lakeland Ramblers local representative, Alan, gave a pep talk, a compass and map reading lesson, emergency numbers and general alarm.  This will be an adventure, no doubt, and I have wondered if I am  crazy to do this..  He allowed the weather was not forgiving at this point, and there would be  opportunities most days  to raise the white flag and call a cab (his name is Gregg). 

Before I went home to prepare for the day ahead, I drowned my worries in a delicious dinner at a Chinese restaurant down the street.  They didn’t have any fortune cookies, so I’m guessing what happens will just be a surprise.