Where I Find That 57 Feels Better Than 55

I have just had my second day, this time a full day, here in Totnes, and I remarkably don’t feel jet-lagged, perhaps because I slept so well last night and have had a full dose of vitamin D in the sun. The centerpiece of the day was a ferry ride to Dartmouth and back down the River Dart, and one advantage to traveling solo is that I can have more time to observe and process than to converse, but I can choose to converse if I find someone willing to engage. Somehow this never seems difficult, especially when I have my sketchbook. I realize that I am much more comfortable in my skin than two years ago, and not that caring about whether people notice me or not. I have been watching a lot of people today, observing how I would draw them, finding drawing people super difficult, appreciating the diversity of humanity around me and the kindness of strangers. As always, I get overly impacted by how people are paying attention to their dogs (or not), but have learned to let go and if people don’t see that their dogs are really hot in the sun and need to lie in the shade, life goes on. I did see a couple treat their dog so well on the ferry that they had a popsicle for the dog (see photos) as well as treats that they would put on their leg and reward the dog for waiting to eat them. They even let the sheepdog lie on their laps at one point. Major points for them!

Also, at the end of the day before I enjoyed some delicious Indian food at the top of High Street, I had a beautiful encounter with a woman and her chihuaha. She had turned down an alley after I had been behind her and the dog she was walking who was making little grunting sounds and I had stopped to notice the seagull on the trash can in the alley and she said to me that her dog grunted when she was happy. That led her to tell me that the dog also sounded like a duck when she was really excited and then I mentioned the seagull and how it likely wanted us to open up the trash for it which led her to tell me how she feeds a seagull and its two babies and her neighbor feeds a couple of seagulls mackerel and trout! (points adding up for humanity here). And that she had a hedgehog in her garden but it moved to the neighbor’s garden, maybe to see what treats awaited it there, and she loves all animals. I concurred that all animals are amazing. On this point, I have not seen a single bait box to kill rodents anywhere in Totnes and I would imagine there would be rats here because of all the restaurants and all the people on these tiny ancient streets. Major points for Totnes again.

Before I caught the ferry I went to a cafe called Kommune Koffee Shack which has to be the antithesis of Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. Pictures say more than I can describe. As I was attempting to sketch the scene looking out of the cafe onto the street, I couldn’t help overhearing a lot of the conversation between two women I was trying to avoid drawing. Then when I had to go to the ferry they stood up and I asked them if it was ok if I tried to put them in the sketch. They wanted to see it and the sketch was terrible so I was reluctant but they saw a few of my other sketches and I must have passed muster because they said they were also artists and they wanted to invite me to see the studio where they were going to work. They each whipped out cards which were super impressive examples of their artwork and I told them I would call them after I came back from Dartmouth. As I was waiting for the ferry, I read through Rima Staines’ website and was astounded, inspired and humbled by the clarity she has in her artistic vision and calling. Here are some screenshots from her website.

Before getting on the ferry I went to a cafe stand to buy some water and had a fun conversation with a teenager there who said he had been to the states three times, but only to Disneyland and he thought that didn’t really count. I said that actually that probably was a good representation of the U.S. and how lucky he was to have parents take him there (I’ve never been and never really wanted to go). He gave me three pounds in change which I then gave to a waitress in Dartmouth. I like the heaviness of pound coins.

The ferry ride was glorious with the exception of the diesel smell surrounding us on the upper deck. The captain gave history and commentary as we meandered down the river towards Dartmouth, passing egrets, cormorants, canada geese, seals. At some point we passed the house which Agatha Christie lived in during the summers and left to her neice, now left to the National Trust. It was the filming location of the final episodes of Poirot with David Suchet. There were descriptions of boats built during WW2 and soldiers coming back from Flanders with all sorts of diseases that meant that particular boat had to be burned, leaving remnants of it still seen today. Overall the landscape seemed parched and almost like a tinder box from the drought here. It is very sad to see all the plants in town dried to a crips (not all but about 70 percent) and the hillsides brown. Still, we go on living in the age of climate collapse enjoying what we can in the endtimes of our fossil fuel civilization, like decaf mocha lattes and sparkling conversations and kittens and goji berries and the whimsy and randomness of human life sometimes.

(above notice the dog licking a red popsicle in the heat).After docking, I headed as far away from the main dock as possible to find a quiet spot for lunch, and discovered a little cafe on four corners with umbrellas in the sun. The waitress suggested I head over to the marketplace for more things to see and I walked over to a little square full of little shops with a couple of restaurants with outside seating (see sketch). The owner of the place where I had a coffee was talking about men and how they should all be euthanized when they started leaving the toilet seat up and getting nose and ear hairs and drooling. It was fairly harsh but he said it like he was doing standup comedy and I took it in stride since he was himself, a man. The atmosphere was light and again, not a rodenticide bait box to be seen. Points for Dartmouth. They also had two types of biodegradable straws, a paper red and white one and a biodegradable plasticky one. Points for the lunch spot!

While waiting to board the ferry back to Totnes I observed a rook playing in the fountain (see above) near the docks and a pigeon drinking from the top tier of the fountain. There were no police around that I could see and kids were running all over the place, having a good time. It’s nice being in a country where people don’t have guns. I like this.

After getting back to Totnes, I wandered up high street again and explored an alley that led to the ancient Guildhall where Oliver Cromwell sat around a table during the English civil war. This was likely the original door. (see photos below) Then I heard organ music (Bach’s In dir ist Freude) and went into the church as if lured in on an invisible string. The man practicing was having quite a bit of difficulty with the double canon and I imagined being extremely obnoxious and going up there and playing it for him since it is in my repertoire and suggesting some ways to practice it that might be more successful, but again, didn’t and everything was better for it.

I stopped in to get a condolence gift for my airbnb hostess because her father died in May and then her uncle apparently died this morning (her father’s identical twin brother). I decided a candle and card were good choices. Then I wandered back into the organic food store where I bought some goji berries and had a great conversation with Emma who asked if I was American (she is from L.A.) which led to other spinoffs about the state of the world etc. etc. I wished her a good life and she wished me one too, and I headed down to the bottom of High Street again (lots of steps here) to sketch at a great restaurant she recommended whose name I forget. I worked on the cafe sketch from the morning making it worse and worse, then decided to drop it and walk across the bridge and up the hill for more exercise since it was only 5:30. As I wandered around Bridgeport, all the paper mache animals started to be revealed continuing the series I saw yesterday. I felt embraced by the kindness of this 80 year old man’s efforts and the value the community placed on other animals getting a chance to shine. Hence the name, Totnes Safari.

I found my way back along the river after running into a woman and her two daughters. She said I passed, is this your house? For some reason she thought I might be owning a house under construction there. We started talking about the paper mache animals everywhere and the meerkats up the hill and her daughters were super engaged telling me about different ones. Apparently some of the sculptures start to degrade and become disturbing if not scary. The daughters told me there used to be a scary unicorn across the street. I guess the paper mache degraded and it lost it’s innocent charm. I wished I had seen what it had looked like before and after.

I decided that I had done so many steps that I could afford a couple samosas at this Indian restaurant and so I ate there and colored in the sketch I did in Dartmouth while listening to three men banter and take on different accents. I gathered they were actors. I made my way back to the airbnb after spotting a kitten in someone’s yard, and here we are, regurgitating a full day for you and for myself as part of my decision to document what I do so that I don’t get to the end of life and wonder what happened?