I used to love children. They were magical, hilarious, cuddly creatures. Now they're loud, chaotic and invasive. What happened to me? I used to see chubby-cheeked angels, and now I can't get past the seemingly incessant screaming and tablecloth pulling and whinging to see anything remotely nice. I'm turning into Mrs. Trunchbull from Matilda... I rather wish that I could spend the majority of my life without coming in contact with anyone who has not yet been toilet trained. Good god, I believe when I was minimizing/simplifying my life, I accidentally threw out all my maternal instincts with my seven pairs of shoes.
Saturday was a work day for me, so I left Maud slumbering in our dorm on the third floor and went downstairs to start preparing lunch (bung and salad) and getting everything ready for dinner (rosemary walnut crepes stuffed with butternut squash and kale). After a few minutes of precious peace in the kitchen, Venetia and her rambunctious daughter joined me.
"I wish I could travel," Venetia's London accent pined. "Now I've got a kid," she motioned to Amelia (who was stabbing her knife in the butter and licking the clinging globs of golden fat). "What am I supposed to do with that, now? Never have kids. I mean, I'm glad I had one and bein' a mother's a beautiful thing, but my life is over -- you know? I mean, I love her. She's a part o' me outside of me, but... but I coulda waited until I was 35. I'm only 24, you know."
"You could take her traveling with you when she's older."
"When she's older, yeah. But what about now?"
"Honestly, it would be difficult to travel with a kid low-budget. Hosts usually don't want to deal with small children --"
"No one wants to deal with small children."
"-- so finding volunteer situations would be challenging for you at this point in your life.
"And just flyin' would be hard. It needs its own passport, its own ticket -- I thought I could just strap it to my chest and go."
"Have you ever heard of couchsurfing?"
"I have some friends who talk about it. Stop eating the butter, Amelia!" Venetia swiped the smeared, fingerprinted tray away.
"When I'm not actually off vagabonding myself, I love to host because it's like a way of traveling while staying still. If you set up a profile, you can invite people to come stay with you as a way of exposing yourself and Amelia to different cultures. If you want to try to get her interested in travel, write on your profile that each couchsurfer should tell your daughter a story about their hometown and cook a simple local meal. You'll end up with the most curious kid in the world and she'll be dying to travel with you."
"Yeah," Venetia studied Amelia (who was now determinedly drawing stick figure masterpieces on the table). "Yeah, I could do that."
"Give it a try," I encouraged as I ground walnuts into flour. "Just be really selective about the people you allow to stay with you -- because of your daughter."
Michael walked in for breakfast and was immediately pounced on by Katherine and asked to make juice --
"And make sure to put the wheat grass through the juicer first. You know why? It's so that way it's sucked in, you know. A handy little system I've devised through the years. And when you're cutting the wheat grass, make sure to get nice and close to the bottom. Like this, that's right. And place it like so, see? in the bowl. And -- "
-- clean the bathrooms --
"Michael, when you're cleaning the bathrooms, would you please take all these towels up with you? And these cups need to be put on the trolley on the first floor. And if you go to the cupboard -- "
-- and vacuum his room.
"I've asked Darrell to do it, but I'm not sure he's got 'round to it yet. Why don't you take Henry and give the carpet a quick going over?"
Michael nodded pleasantly.
"No problem."
Michael sat down with his cup of tea.
I need to learn to let things roll off of me the way they roll off of Michael.
Lunch prep was nearly finished by the time my South African co-volunteer finished his rooibos and started juicing wheat grass just so.
"Do you want to help, Amelia?" Michael pulled over a kiddie chair for the bouncy three-year-old to stand on. "Here, why don't you feed the juicer a piece of celery?"
Dinner prep was finished by the time all the celery had been juiced.
Efficiency. I think sometimes I strive to be so timely -- so efficient -- that I forget to take enough time to care. I could have finished juicing four times as fast, but what's the point? Why is "efficiency" of such enormous value to me?
We all very inefficiently loaded into two cars (over an hour later than planned) and drove to Woolacombe beach to take advantage of the rare and beautiful sunshine.
Car conversations are always very diverse. I talked about how I'd like to make a little money out of teaching yoga whilst traveling, but that too much money would only be like too much of anything else -- a burden. Something that would add unnecessary stress to my life. Hannah talked about learning ecstatic dancing in India. Maud talked about volunteering with pandas in China (her upcoming trip).
Stewart talked about how mothers who hold babies close to their hearts after birth synchronize their heartbeats. The babies absorb all that heart energy and become super humans who learn to speak at six months old.
The beach was sunny. The weather was relatively warm (boiling for England and tolerable for Southern France). People were throwing sand for their dogs to chase after and children were drawing lines in the sand.
Maud and I drifted to the right, moving at the sluggish pace of amateur photographers who think that they can make everything look interesting if they take the time to find the right angle.
It was warm enough for ice cream, so I justified a scoop of sublime vanilla clotted cream (Devon is particularly famous for its clotted cream) and Maud licked a scoop of lemon meringue.
"I'm going to do a quick in and out," I told Maud as I scraped the last drop of melted cream from the cup.
"You're going to freeze," Maud warned.
"Yes. Yes, I am going to freeze," I glanced around the beach at the people in jackets and the surfers in full body wetsuits. "But it's just an in and out and I haven't touched the Atlantic since... Westport. Yeah, when I needed icy Atlantic water to cure my Irish hangover."
"It's your body," Maud said as I piggy-backed her over a puddle.
"Yup," I plopped her down on the other side of the tide pool and started stripping down to my knickers. "Would you hold my bag?"
"Oh, am I your bitch now?"
"I did just carry you over a puddle."
I shoved my bag at Maud and rushed in. The frigid water covered my toes, washed over my ankles, crashed against my thighs. I felt the stress and pollution and loneliness of Istanbul wash away as I plunged into the ocean, dunking my head and stifling a scream.
Maud and I spent our last night together at the local pub. We drank Thatchers from the kiddie chairs in the corner and were entertained by onslaughts of locals who were absolutely delighted (and dumbfounded) that two foreigners had chosen to visit Combe Martin over London. They all fell head-over-heels for my gorgeous Dutch friend (one even asked if he could visit her in Holland), and I relished the sensation of invisibility.
No makeup, plain black skirt, fluffy jacket, muddy boots, neon purple leggings. Bourget, you will never be hit on again. Not in a pub, anyway.
A curly-haired English woman wobbled over to our table and apologized for the behavior of her male drinking buddies. Then she broke into song, regaling us with rhyming improvised verses about the size of her drink, the size of a certain fellow's member and how all you really need is a cucumber.
To the tune of "yesterday".
I'm at a point in my life wherein I can say I've visited a few places around the world. Out of all the places I've visited, Combe Martin is by far the most bizarre.
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