Post by Amelia Kirby on Jan 26, 2006 20:41:51 GMT -5
This is a "descriptive personal narrative," as Johnson put it, that I wrote for English class. I'm not entirely proud of it, but hey, I wrote it in one night and this is my product. Enjoy, my lovelies! ><;
When my dad came up with the idea of taking a seven hour trip to Cornwall, England, I admit I was not nearly as thrilled as he was. As far as I was concerned, sitting on my badly bruised tailbone for seven hours straight while also having to read the map to my dad (something I am not good at), and then arriving to some ramshackle bed and breakfast run by a lonely old lady just to visit something I had never been thrilled about in the first place—the sea—seemed to be a waste of precious gas and sounded a little too adventurous for my taste. Especially since I was still bummed about not getting to go to London at all during our visit to my dad because of the subway bombings, which had happened the very morning after our plane landed at Heathrow airport.
But if my dad got it in his head to do something, well then by golly we were going to do it. And if driving for seven hours was okay with him… well, I was only the passenger. I was allowed to read. He was the one who had to drive, so if it was okay with him, then who cared if I couldn’t stand up after spending much time and pain trying to sit down? Okay, I did. But I’d had to spend the previous week cooped up in the house or on our cousins’ trampoline with my brother, of all people. If we couldn’t sightsee in London, I was more than happy to do something else. The only thing we’d really done was drive down to Cheltenham (an hour-and-a-half-long drive) to visit my sister and her family. Spending time with my nephews was always great fun, but the trip had ended and we’d come back to my dad’s house in Oxfordshire once again.
While we’d been in Cheltenham, we’d gone to watch my older nephew Andrew run a few races at his school. That was where I’d hurt myself. I couldn’t tell you how, but I can tell you when. We’d been heading to the car to drive back to my sister’s pub/house (anyone who runs a pub in England has a house just upstairs), and I, getting into the childish spirit needed to bond with my nephews—although I will confess, reverting to childishness is not a hard thing for me to do—jumped off an admittedly high wall. In boots, and I don’t mean hiking boots. I guess the landing jostled me a little too much, and after that… well, I had a lot of trouble sitting down from then on. Sometimes, even months later, I still do.
As I had guessed, when we were piling into the car, ready to drive for seven whole hours to see the sea, I was the last in the car. I had tried to sit down normally, I really had, but with one foot in and one hanging out, as soon as my rear touched the seat I jumped up again, hitting my head on the roof on the way out. Dad gave me an impatient look while I rubbed my head disconcertedly and I tried again. I didn’t leap quite as high at the pain this time, but I certainly didn’t just plop my little self down. I can’t quite describe how much it hurt beyond “a lot.” I did, eventually, get into the car, but only after many tries from me and sighs from Dad.
The drive was long and uneventful, to my memory. I read, Connor slept and ate, and Dad drove and drummed on the steering wheel to songs such as “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Bad Case of Loving You.” As usual, the English hillsides made for fantastic scenery, especially for an Arizona girl; not a single cactus. I loved it. One of my favorite features was a common sight for us, since it was a road in Oxfordshire, a road my dad always took to get to Oxford. The road was a long, winding thing, but it wasn’t the road I loved, it was the trees that lined it. They were tall and had a certain quality about them that implied a form of nobility and grace, and they hung over the road, forming a shady tunnel that was especially beautiful in the afternoon. It made me feel safe and relaxed.
The best scenery, though, were the cliffs.
My dad had told me he had mapped out a certain route that would take us along the cliffs on the southwestern side of England. We were headed to Penzance, Cornwall, which was the very southernmost tip; it was the bottom of England, and the home of famous Land’s End. This was the reason the trip was seven hours. Dad had taken the long way. But it was so worth it. We traveled along many tall cliff roads that hung over the sea, and it gave us a great view of the whitecaps lapping at the small brown points of rocks bravely jutting out from the foam that was trying so hard to swallow them.
Penzance, when we finally got there, was positively amazing for me. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. A very small seaside town, it had very narrow, cobblestone streets and small wooden buildings that lined them. Cars parked on the sides of the streets, except when there was the occasional, erratically placed parking lot for beachgoers. It was almost literally on the beach, though slightly raised, and thin, weak-looking fences, which almost looked like they were made of driftwood, bordered the streets and sidewalks. There was also the occasional dock, and all kinds of boats, predominately sailboats, were lined against them, with their names printed in various forms of delicate calligraphy on their sterns. What I loved most about the town, although my dad might not have enjoyed it so much, were the incredibly narrow streets, almost alleyways, which wound up hills, in-between two-story brick houses and then rejoined the larger streets. My dad seemed very high-strung while trying to maneuver through them, but I enjoyed it.
People in Penzance were very friendly. They waved to you as you passed, and the way they walked told me they were an easygoing lot. Of course, when you can walk around in shorts, flip-flops and island print shirts, along with wide-brimmed hats and aviator sunglasses, you tend to give off an easygoing vibe. I couldn’t help but have a little titter at their bizarre tan lines and sunburns. I was amazed at the way they didn’t seem to care about being sunburned. Things were very different in Arizona. Then again, in Arizona, walking to the store could sunburn you.
I had no recollection of ever being to the beach, so I counted this as my first time. And in all the books I’d read, any beach scenes described the air to be thick with the smell of salt and mist. I’d always scoffed at this, doubting entirely that this was true. But when I rolled down my window in the car, I found that even though the air wasn’t thick with the smell, it was still cool and beautifully refreshing, and it did indeed smell of sea salt and mist. One of the things I loved most about the environment was the caw of the seagulls as they swooped among tourists and natives, searching for dropped scraps of food. They had no fear of humans as most other birds did. They were bold, brash, and had an almost arrogant air about them, and the way they looked at you seemed almost human at times.
Our B&B was on the outskirts of Penzance, and the roads wound through tall hedges that scraped against the car’s windows and served as walls to keep us on the right path. These roads led to a sort of bed and breakfast community. It seemed as though it was a whole neighborhood of B&B’s, and ours was the hardest to find. We seemed to have to turn around so many times, and that we were going around in circles. When we did find it, we realized that we’d passed it several times.
It was a pleasant-looking two-story, very small, very cozy-looking, and the yard in front of it held a small chestnut pony that gazed at us through friendly eyes like pools of rich chocolate. It was better than a welcoming mat, and warmed me to the thought of staying in a stranger’s house for the weekend. When I heard a cow moo from the house next door, I began to snicker and, on a childish whim (which I seem to get a lot of), I yelled out, “COWS!”
I realized when we walked into the house that I’d been unreasonable in my expectations of our hostess. Yes, she was perhaps in her seventies, but she was a very kind lady who seemed eager to get to know her tenants. She immediately offered us tea in a lovely accent, which had a small hint of C0ckney to it, and since I had an aversion to hot tea (which actually wouldn’t hold out for our stay in Cornwall), I politely declined and even then, she offered juice. We sat for perhaps half an hour, getting to know our host. She told us a lot about herself, and we found out that she used to raise prize-winning dairy cows and though she didn’t do it now, she raised her own chickens and used their prize-winning eggs in her breakfasts.
The house, though small, was extremely cozy, the kind of place you could become fond of immediately. My brother and dad shared a room while I had my own. The bed had a soft, squishy mattress and was piled with intricately woven quilts and crocheted blankets, as well as two large pillows and three small ones. There was an electric-powered heating jug for water and an entire tea set with sugar, milk, and teabags, as well as an alarm clock and a large, old-fashioned mirror. It was entirely perfect, and I felt myself longing to have a house just like this someday.
My dad and brother’s room was appropriately larger, with a double bed and a huge wooden vanity—yes, a vanity—and a tall bookshelf. They even had a porcelain sink in their room, as well as a mirror. After looking at the rooms and the bathroom, which had another porcelain sink and a toilet that flushed with a pull-handle, I knew what the theme was. The bookshelf only reassured me. I was well read on English queens and much of English history, and I could tell you in a heartbeat that all of this furniture dated back to the Victorian era. I knew I was right when I saw that the bookshelf was absolutely full of books on Queen Victoria, and that a large portrait of the queen in question hung over the vanity. This only made me happier with our choice in B&B’s, since Queen Victoria was one of my idols.
That night, through Dad’s frustrations with his cell phone because it wouldn’t pick up a signal all the way out where we were so that we could call my mother, Connor and I made ourselves a cup of hot tea on a whim and some urging from Dad. I was silly enough to try it without any additions and found that tea is extremely strong without milk or sugar. But I realized that I loved it, once I’d added said sweeteners.
We found out the next morning that our hostess not only raised her own eggs, but that she grew her own tomatoes and made her own jam as well. Because of this, the meal we ate was one of the best I’ve ever had. We also got some tips from her for some of the best tourist attractions and which were the best sights to see.
We visited so many fantastic places in Cornwall, so many cliffs and beaches. We did go to see Land’s End where there was quite a lot of publicity. Dad and I thought it was a shame, but Connor had a lot of fun looking through the history of boats, shipwrecks, and was thrilled when we actually went inside an old-fashioned lifeboat. We also went to Saint Michael’s Mount, a large land extension of Land’s End that had a large castle/abbey (I wasn’t sure which, many people called it either of the two) on top.
Of all the places we saw, Cape Cornwall struck me the most. It was the only cape in all of England, and it was gorgeous. A large hilly land extension in Penzance, Cape Cornwall had lots of uprisings and hills to climb over, as well as decrepit and crumbling stone walls that wound around the foremost hill of the cape. On top of this hill was a brick pillar with a bronze plaque with something about a man named Heinz who started the ketchup company. This struck me as out-of-place, but that held my attention for a very small amount of time, for as soon as we hit the top of this hill, the highest place on the cape, the wind could be felt easier. As it blew my hair out behind me, I turned to one of the most breathtaking sights I’ve ever beheld—Cape Cornwall itself.
It’s hard to describe the Cape. It was a hill covered in mounds, and mounds covered in spiny brambles, but also with heather, daisies, and other such flowers. There were small stone shrines and pet graves. But best of all was the view of the rest of the cape and of the ocean from that hill. The ocean stretched before us in a vast expanse of perfect blue, and rocks jutted from the waves as they crashed over the beaches and cliffs in the wind. And though the wind was cold, it only added to all the beauty that lay before us.
There was also a small stone bench on the other side of the hill, and we sat there and watched a couple sitting together just ahead of us, on a rather precarious-looking stone outcrop. I listened vaguely as Connor asked Dad whether he and I would ever be able to swim home to America from there, listened to Dad laughing merrily at the question. But I was lost in my own world. I was lost in amazement that fantasies from books that I’d never thought could actually be real uncurled before my eyes. I’d always been a very contrary type, always lost in fantasies and daydreams. I liked to be deep at inappropriate moments. But it was only to escape from reality. This was an escape from reality in reality.
I felt as though I was in a dream, and I think the cool winds blowing on our necks added to it in some surreal fashion. And though I was bound to be forced away from this haven I’d discovered, I regretted it deeply. On our way back, however, I discovered new little fascinations to take my mind away from it, such as a small two-ended cave cut into the stone foundation of the cape by fierce, relentlessly crashing waves. However, I did stop to look at the waves one more time.
There was something about them that drew me, something about the way they rolled into the shore, carelessly, gracefully, effortlessly. There was something about the soft whooshing sound they made as they did this, the way they splashed against the rocks, lapped at the shores, and crept through crevices you wouldn’t notice until the waves pointed them out. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it was as though something inside me reached out to them.
We returned to our B&B tired, but once I had returned to my goofy, careless self, I insisted that Dad find out the next morning if I could somehow pet a cow. Our hostess assured us that she would ask the neighbor, who had many cows next door whose milk he sold to various companies, whether we could go over and watch, and perhaps pet the cows. In my own ridiculous way, I was elated, because although I knew it was pathetic but funny, being from Phoenix, I’d never really seen a cow up close. We did get to watch the cows get milked, and then got to feed their calves through gigantic baby bottles. They were hungry little monsters and didn’t know the difference between empty and full. They kept sucking away at the bottles until there was nothing left to suck out, and then they sucked some more. Pulling the bottles away from them was even harder than trying to keep them from pulling it through the fence, and they kept hitting their heads on the metal bars of the fence. That was the day that I realized that cows actually were as stupid as they were made out to be.
Our visit to Cornwall has stayed with me long after the trip, because I think something in me changed on those rocky cliffs. Some part of me opened up, like a well of calmness and peace. It was like a reserve of such feelings for whenever I became angry or upset, and since then, I have drawn from it very often. I learned on that trip that though I’d used to dream of nothing but going to college in England and then living there, the fact that my feelings did a complete flip didn’t mean that I was wrong. If I ever do decide to live in England, I know where I’d choose to go: Penzance, where I felt as though I could let every part of me emanate as strongly in public as it does when I’m alone. Where I felt totally at peace, and where all of my worries about entering high school or summer homework simply melted away.
I know that though my supposedly deep or thoughtful rendition of my experiences there may seem out-of-place among my telling of it, my daydreaming can feed into my everyday life, because not every fantasy is ridiculous. Thoughts like these give me a sort of hope that I’m not completely estranged from normal people just because I have a tendency to live in my head.
Feeding a Fantasy
When my dad came up with the idea of taking a seven hour trip to Cornwall, England, I admit I was not nearly as thrilled as he was. As far as I was concerned, sitting on my badly bruised tailbone for seven hours straight while also having to read the map to my dad (something I am not good at), and then arriving to some ramshackle bed and breakfast run by a lonely old lady just to visit something I had never been thrilled about in the first place—the sea—seemed to be a waste of precious gas and sounded a little too adventurous for my taste. Especially since I was still bummed about not getting to go to London at all during our visit to my dad because of the subway bombings, which had happened the very morning after our plane landed at Heathrow airport.
But if my dad got it in his head to do something, well then by golly we were going to do it. And if driving for seven hours was okay with him… well, I was only the passenger. I was allowed to read. He was the one who had to drive, so if it was okay with him, then who cared if I couldn’t stand up after spending much time and pain trying to sit down? Okay, I did. But I’d had to spend the previous week cooped up in the house or on our cousins’ trampoline with my brother, of all people. If we couldn’t sightsee in London, I was more than happy to do something else. The only thing we’d really done was drive down to Cheltenham (an hour-and-a-half-long drive) to visit my sister and her family. Spending time with my nephews was always great fun, but the trip had ended and we’d come back to my dad’s house in Oxfordshire once again.
While we’d been in Cheltenham, we’d gone to watch my older nephew Andrew run a few races at his school. That was where I’d hurt myself. I couldn’t tell you how, but I can tell you when. We’d been heading to the car to drive back to my sister’s pub/house (anyone who runs a pub in England has a house just upstairs), and I, getting into the childish spirit needed to bond with my nephews—although I will confess, reverting to childishness is not a hard thing for me to do—jumped off an admittedly high wall. In boots, and I don’t mean hiking boots. I guess the landing jostled me a little too much, and after that… well, I had a lot of trouble sitting down from then on. Sometimes, even months later, I still do.
As I had guessed, when we were piling into the car, ready to drive for seven whole hours to see the sea, I was the last in the car. I had tried to sit down normally, I really had, but with one foot in and one hanging out, as soon as my rear touched the seat I jumped up again, hitting my head on the roof on the way out. Dad gave me an impatient look while I rubbed my head disconcertedly and I tried again. I didn’t leap quite as high at the pain this time, but I certainly didn’t just plop my little self down. I can’t quite describe how much it hurt beyond “a lot.” I did, eventually, get into the car, but only after many tries from me and sighs from Dad.
The drive was long and uneventful, to my memory. I read, Connor slept and ate, and Dad drove and drummed on the steering wheel to songs such as “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Bad Case of Loving You.” As usual, the English hillsides made for fantastic scenery, especially for an Arizona girl; not a single cactus. I loved it. One of my favorite features was a common sight for us, since it was a road in Oxfordshire, a road my dad always took to get to Oxford. The road was a long, winding thing, but it wasn’t the road I loved, it was the trees that lined it. They were tall and had a certain quality about them that implied a form of nobility and grace, and they hung over the road, forming a shady tunnel that was especially beautiful in the afternoon. It made me feel safe and relaxed.
The best scenery, though, were the cliffs.
My dad had told me he had mapped out a certain route that would take us along the cliffs on the southwestern side of England. We were headed to Penzance, Cornwall, which was the very southernmost tip; it was the bottom of England, and the home of famous Land’s End. This was the reason the trip was seven hours. Dad had taken the long way. But it was so worth it. We traveled along many tall cliff roads that hung over the sea, and it gave us a great view of the whitecaps lapping at the small brown points of rocks bravely jutting out from the foam that was trying so hard to swallow them.
Penzance, when we finally got there, was positively amazing for me. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. A very small seaside town, it had very narrow, cobblestone streets and small wooden buildings that lined them. Cars parked on the sides of the streets, except when there was the occasional, erratically placed parking lot for beachgoers. It was almost literally on the beach, though slightly raised, and thin, weak-looking fences, which almost looked like they were made of driftwood, bordered the streets and sidewalks. There was also the occasional dock, and all kinds of boats, predominately sailboats, were lined against them, with their names printed in various forms of delicate calligraphy on their sterns. What I loved most about the town, although my dad might not have enjoyed it so much, were the incredibly narrow streets, almost alleyways, which wound up hills, in-between two-story brick houses and then rejoined the larger streets. My dad seemed very high-strung while trying to maneuver through them, but I enjoyed it.
People in Penzance were very friendly. They waved to you as you passed, and the way they walked told me they were an easygoing lot. Of course, when you can walk around in shorts, flip-flops and island print shirts, along with wide-brimmed hats and aviator sunglasses, you tend to give off an easygoing vibe. I couldn’t help but have a little titter at their bizarre tan lines and sunburns. I was amazed at the way they didn’t seem to care about being sunburned. Things were very different in Arizona. Then again, in Arizona, walking to the store could sunburn you.
I had no recollection of ever being to the beach, so I counted this as my first time. And in all the books I’d read, any beach scenes described the air to be thick with the smell of salt and mist. I’d always scoffed at this, doubting entirely that this was true. But when I rolled down my window in the car, I found that even though the air wasn’t thick with the smell, it was still cool and beautifully refreshing, and it did indeed smell of sea salt and mist. One of the things I loved most about the environment was the caw of the seagulls as they swooped among tourists and natives, searching for dropped scraps of food. They had no fear of humans as most other birds did. They were bold, brash, and had an almost arrogant air about them, and the way they looked at you seemed almost human at times.
Our B&B was on the outskirts of Penzance, and the roads wound through tall hedges that scraped against the car’s windows and served as walls to keep us on the right path. These roads led to a sort of bed and breakfast community. It seemed as though it was a whole neighborhood of B&B’s, and ours was the hardest to find. We seemed to have to turn around so many times, and that we were going around in circles. When we did find it, we realized that we’d passed it several times.
It was a pleasant-looking two-story, very small, very cozy-looking, and the yard in front of it held a small chestnut pony that gazed at us through friendly eyes like pools of rich chocolate. It was better than a welcoming mat, and warmed me to the thought of staying in a stranger’s house for the weekend. When I heard a cow moo from the house next door, I began to snicker and, on a childish whim (which I seem to get a lot of), I yelled out, “COWS!”
I realized when we walked into the house that I’d been unreasonable in my expectations of our hostess. Yes, she was perhaps in her seventies, but she was a very kind lady who seemed eager to get to know her tenants. She immediately offered us tea in a lovely accent, which had a small hint of C0ckney to it, and since I had an aversion to hot tea (which actually wouldn’t hold out for our stay in Cornwall), I politely declined and even then, she offered juice. We sat for perhaps half an hour, getting to know our host. She told us a lot about herself, and we found out that she used to raise prize-winning dairy cows and though she didn’t do it now, she raised her own chickens and used their prize-winning eggs in her breakfasts.
The house, though small, was extremely cozy, the kind of place you could become fond of immediately. My brother and dad shared a room while I had my own. The bed had a soft, squishy mattress and was piled with intricately woven quilts and crocheted blankets, as well as two large pillows and three small ones. There was an electric-powered heating jug for water and an entire tea set with sugar, milk, and teabags, as well as an alarm clock and a large, old-fashioned mirror. It was entirely perfect, and I felt myself longing to have a house just like this someday.
My dad and brother’s room was appropriately larger, with a double bed and a huge wooden vanity—yes, a vanity—and a tall bookshelf. They even had a porcelain sink in their room, as well as a mirror. After looking at the rooms and the bathroom, which had another porcelain sink and a toilet that flushed with a pull-handle, I knew what the theme was. The bookshelf only reassured me. I was well read on English queens and much of English history, and I could tell you in a heartbeat that all of this furniture dated back to the Victorian era. I knew I was right when I saw that the bookshelf was absolutely full of books on Queen Victoria, and that a large portrait of the queen in question hung over the vanity. This only made me happier with our choice in B&B’s, since Queen Victoria was one of my idols.
That night, through Dad’s frustrations with his cell phone because it wouldn’t pick up a signal all the way out where we were so that we could call my mother, Connor and I made ourselves a cup of hot tea on a whim and some urging from Dad. I was silly enough to try it without any additions and found that tea is extremely strong without milk or sugar. But I realized that I loved it, once I’d added said sweeteners.
We found out the next morning that our hostess not only raised her own eggs, but that she grew her own tomatoes and made her own jam as well. Because of this, the meal we ate was one of the best I’ve ever had. We also got some tips from her for some of the best tourist attractions and which were the best sights to see.
We visited so many fantastic places in Cornwall, so many cliffs and beaches. We did go to see Land’s End where there was quite a lot of publicity. Dad and I thought it was a shame, but Connor had a lot of fun looking through the history of boats, shipwrecks, and was thrilled when we actually went inside an old-fashioned lifeboat. We also went to Saint Michael’s Mount, a large land extension of Land’s End that had a large castle/abbey (I wasn’t sure which, many people called it either of the two) on top.
Of all the places we saw, Cape Cornwall struck me the most. It was the only cape in all of England, and it was gorgeous. A large hilly land extension in Penzance, Cape Cornwall had lots of uprisings and hills to climb over, as well as decrepit and crumbling stone walls that wound around the foremost hill of the cape. On top of this hill was a brick pillar with a bronze plaque with something about a man named Heinz who started the ketchup company. This struck me as out-of-place, but that held my attention for a very small amount of time, for as soon as we hit the top of this hill, the highest place on the cape, the wind could be felt easier. As it blew my hair out behind me, I turned to one of the most breathtaking sights I’ve ever beheld—Cape Cornwall itself.
It’s hard to describe the Cape. It was a hill covered in mounds, and mounds covered in spiny brambles, but also with heather, daisies, and other such flowers. There were small stone shrines and pet graves. But best of all was the view of the rest of the cape and of the ocean from that hill. The ocean stretched before us in a vast expanse of perfect blue, and rocks jutted from the waves as they crashed over the beaches and cliffs in the wind. And though the wind was cold, it only added to all the beauty that lay before us.
There was also a small stone bench on the other side of the hill, and we sat there and watched a couple sitting together just ahead of us, on a rather precarious-looking stone outcrop. I listened vaguely as Connor asked Dad whether he and I would ever be able to swim home to America from there, listened to Dad laughing merrily at the question. But I was lost in my own world. I was lost in amazement that fantasies from books that I’d never thought could actually be real uncurled before my eyes. I’d always been a very contrary type, always lost in fantasies and daydreams. I liked to be deep at inappropriate moments. But it was only to escape from reality. This was an escape from reality in reality.
I felt as though I was in a dream, and I think the cool winds blowing on our necks added to it in some surreal fashion. And though I was bound to be forced away from this haven I’d discovered, I regretted it deeply. On our way back, however, I discovered new little fascinations to take my mind away from it, such as a small two-ended cave cut into the stone foundation of the cape by fierce, relentlessly crashing waves. However, I did stop to look at the waves one more time.
There was something about them that drew me, something about the way they rolled into the shore, carelessly, gracefully, effortlessly. There was something about the soft whooshing sound they made as they did this, the way they splashed against the rocks, lapped at the shores, and crept through crevices you wouldn’t notice until the waves pointed them out. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it was as though something inside me reached out to them.
We returned to our B&B tired, but once I had returned to my goofy, careless self, I insisted that Dad find out the next morning if I could somehow pet a cow. Our hostess assured us that she would ask the neighbor, who had many cows next door whose milk he sold to various companies, whether we could go over and watch, and perhaps pet the cows. In my own ridiculous way, I was elated, because although I knew it was pathetic but funny, being from Phoenix, I’d never really seen a cow up close. We did get to watch the cows get milked, and then got to feed their calves through gigantic baby bottles. They were hungry little monsters and didn’t know the difference between empty and full. They kept sucking away at the bottles until there was nothing left to suck out, and then they sucked some more. Pulling the bottles away from them was even harder than trying to keep them from pulling it through the fence, and they kept hitting their heads on the metal bars of the fence. That was the day that I realized that cows actually were as stupid as they were made out to be.
Our visit to Cornwall has stayed with me long after the trip, because I think something in me changed on those rocky cliffs. Some part of me opened up, like a well of calmness and peace. It was like a reserve of such feelings for whenever I became angry or upset, and since then, I have drawn from it very often. I learned on that trip that though I’d used to dream of nothing but going to college in England and then living there, the fact that my feelings did a complete flip didn’t mean that I was wrong. If I ever do decide to live in England, I know where I’d choose to go: Penzance, where I felt as though I could let every part of me emanate as strongly in public as it does when I’m alone. Where I felt totally at peace, and where all of my worries about entering high school or summer homework simply melted away.
I know that though my supposedly deep or thoughtful rendition of my experiences there may seem out-of-place among my telling of it, my daydreaming can feed into my everyday life, because not every fantasy is ridiculous. Thoughts like these give me a sort of hope that I’m not completely estranged from normal people just because I have a tendency to live in my head.
