Wendy drove as fast as she would allow herself to get to the Botallack mine by sunset. The evening was cold and the wind never stops blowing in from the Atlantic. Yet quite a large group had gathered. A young woman sat cross-legged on a rock that jutted into the sea and waited. Others waited in their cars, still others clutched their coats and watched. Wendy was one of the former, this not being the first time Sue had photographed the sunset. I was one of the latter mostly because I like to watch Sue photograph. The atmosphere and the drama of the setting sun was magical.

At the Botallack Mine

Sue at Botallack

Moving to more mundane matters, I bought bicarbonate of soda in the Pendeen shop to sprinkle in my shoes, which still stank. I coated both shoes and left them out in the Cornish sea air. I used my new foot salve, Socks, and went to sleep. In the morning I put on sandals, my only other pair of shoes. I fought my way through the cousins to hang the wash on the line. We had done colors on this morning and whites yesterday.

Today was Celtic Spirituality morning beginning with Men-An-Tol, megalithic remains that looked quite sexual to me. A holed stone and two phalli plus a kind of wilted one that leaned over. Close to Morvah, it was still a bit of a walk off the main road.

Men-an-Tol

Sue at Men-an-Tol

These strange ancient sites make me feel like a three year I once babysat. He heard some opera and asked quizzically, “What is that?” Coming from the the west coast of the U.S. where Caucasians have been around less than 200 years, I hardly know what to make of this antiquity. I do know that when I am in their presence, I feel a kind of Presence but then I don’t know what to make of that. So I stood in the Presence and then I took photos. I watched Sue taking photos, then I took photos of Sue taking photos.

Up the road from Men-an-tol is Miscellaneous Standing Stone in a Field, which –after I had communed with it—I learned was called Men-scryfa or “stone of writing.” It stands there like a still life with the presence of that terrifying statue of Dante in Florence. Or “Christmas Yet to Come” in Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol.  See? I don’t know what to make of these stones. There is an inscription on the stone that seems to call itself (in Gaelic) “grave of Rigalobranos, son of Cunoualos.”

Men Scryfa in Field

Men Scryfa and shadow

I set off through the hay drying in some poor farmer’s field because people are going to trample it no matter what. Wendy and Sue waited at the gate telling me to not come back until I felt The Aura. Sue presently came in. We stayed until interrupted by a couple with cameras.

Pursued by a tractor, we carried on down a different road to Lanyon Quoit, a dolmen. As far as I can make out, a dolmen is a table made of three stones and a quoit is the top of the table. So they are basically the same thing except they aren’t tables at all. They are the remains of a tomb: two tall stones supporting a flat one, in the case of Lanyon Quoit, three tall stones. Lanyon Quoit can be seen from the road but to actually get to it, we traversed a brick stile and walked up a wide green path.

Again the sense of Presence, nothing particularly mystical, but old, tired and a little sad.  “The still, sad music of humanity” as Wordsworth said about Tintern Abbey, a much younger ruin. I felt it in spades when I stood inside the quoit and looked out at 21^st century people taking photos on a windy, sky-blue day.

Turnstile to Lanyon Quoit

Lanyon Quoit with dramatic lighting

Lanyon Quoit with tourists

We passed a father and his little girl, aged around three, on one of these pilgrimages. He held her two dolls while she picked blackberries from the hedgerow with patient attention to every detail of what she was doing. Children can be masters of mindfulness. It’s irritating.

But it gave rise to a conversation about spoken English. Wendy and Sue say “black-brie” and I say “black bare ee.”

“See? You draw your words out,” Sue said.

For the rest of the day I  muttered, “Black-brie, blue-brie, strah-brie, rahs-brie.

We discussed the way the English add questions to the ends of statements almost like a tic:

“I didn’t notice that lot in the chapel were smoking, did I?” I recited. “You tag little questions like that.”

“Do we?”

“Hmmm.”

That’s another English thing, the “Hmmm” that goes up in pitch and then down. I think it means “I heard you and I’m not particularly interested.”

“Quite” is a quirky word. Something that is “quite satisfactory” is just barely satisfactory. “Quite a pretty little bird” means the bird is lovely. “Quite right” is a vote of solidarity with the addressee:

“Finally I turned around and said to them, I bought a ticket to hear the music, not you!”

“Quite right.”

On to the glorious expanse of Cape Cornwall, a National Trust reserve where walking trails take one to the highest point of a headland and the Coast Watch. We finally got our morning cup of tea in bone china cups at the tea hut and sat on logs in the warm sunshine.

Bone China mugs

Apparently a caravan i.e. trailer called the “Little Wonder Café” used to park at Cape Cornwall during the warm months. One could get cups of tea and “normal food and hunks of cake and lovely local pasties.” Now all that’s left of the Little Wonder caravan is a permanent shelter that sells posh food with truffles and cilantro and the bone china cups. I thought I would never hear the end of it from Sue and Wendy: “And there was a caravan and a lovely block of toilets.”

We had our cups of tea and I took a photo of them sitting alongside the tea hut, probably grumbling about the old days when there was a lovely block of toilets. Later I googled the Little Wonder Café at Cape Cornwall and found that Wendy and Sue weren’t the only grumblers. It was a beloved institution.

Wendy and Sue grumbling about the cafe at Cape Cornwall

At the water’s edge, Wendy and I sat in the sun watching Sue photograph kelp and boats. We talked about family—we are still trying to untangle our tenuous connection.

“You feel so familiar, Wendy. Comfortable and welcoming.”

“Well, you’re family, aren’t you? We quite like having an American cousin.”

I believe the “quite” in that sentence means lovely, not just barely tolerable.

I was reminded (as we watched Sue meticulously focusing and clicking) of the patience of the English. Or maybe it’s partly being out of the city. Or Cornwall herself. A calm rhythm dances even in the mining and farming districts that are fading out. Islay was like that, too, but Cornwall feels in my bones.

Sue photographing at Cape Cornwall

Cape Cornwall