Glassels

As I've done readings and interviews for Uphill Both Ways over the last few months, one question has come up again and again: what's your next big adventure? And I've been chagrined to not have an answer. Since our big hike in 2016, the boys and I went on a road trip to Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and points in between. I went on a solo road trip to Colorado last fall. We traveled as a family to Washington, DC, the summer before the pandemic. And I went to Mexico with friends last winter. We've also gone on our sort-of-annual camping trip, with a couple of missed years due to work and pandemic. But none of those have been adventure adventures like hiking 500 miles through Colorado. And since the book came out in March, I haven't had even a little adventure, other than a weekend of car camping, on my agenda.

I needed to do something to remedy that situation, stat, so I began thinking about a hiking trip along the coast in Downeast Maine, a trip we'd planned to take the fall after we returned from the Colorado Trail, until both the weather and the children threatened mutiny. I thought it might be my opportunity to give solo hiking a try, for the first time in 25 years. But as I thought about our gear--tents and stoves designed for groups, not singles--and the fact that I'd have to carry all my water, I decided to invite C along, even though I swore I'd never backpack with him again after our Colorado Trail hike (if you've read the book, you'll know why).

He agreed, and we gathered gear and food for two days and hit the road very early in the morning on the last Friday in July. C loaded his pack with most of the essentials, and with the weight I saved by not carrying anything vital, I brought along two books, a journal kit, a camera, binoculars, and an extra sleep pad for lounging on the beach. After a very long drive, we made the hot, sweaty hike in. On the five miles of up-and-down, rooty, rocky, brushy trail, with six liters of water on my back, I was very, very grateful to not also be carrying our 6-pound, five(ish)-person tent or our not-so-light Whisper-Lite stove.

Once we arrived at our campsite, the apltly named Fairy Head, we spent the afternoon and all the next day moving from rock to rock as we lounged on the beach, cooking, snacking, reading, birdwatching, and swimming, I was again very, very grateful to have company. I'm very good at entertaining myself, but it was nice to have someone to chat with and share camp chores with. Although we wished we'd brought a mini deck of cards, we caught up on about 20 years' worth of conversation. C, for his part, redeemed himself, and he only got a little bit antsy. As a remedy, I proposed a walk to the headland (and ended up slipping on seaweed and acquiring a collection of big, purple bruises). 

Our beach was made up of pebbles ranging in size from marble to potato. Most of them were a slaty gray, but several had blue, red, pink, or green in them, and they glistened like gems when wet from the outgoing tide. I was reminded of the book Landmarks by Robert MacFarlane, where he quotes The Meaning of Liffby Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, which MacFarlane describes as "a genius catalogue of nonce words. . . in which British place names are used as nouns for the 'hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all recognize, but for which no word exists.'" One example he quotes is " 'Glassel (n.): A seaside pebble which was shiny and interesting when wet, and which now is a lump of rock, but which children nevertheless insist on filling their suitcases with after a holiday.' "

C filled his pockets with glassels, several of which now sit on our coffee table. They've been polished enough by eons of being washed and tumbled by the sea that they are a bit more interesting than lumps of rock, and even the least shiny ones are silent reminders of a our adventure.

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