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a bright and beautiful, fulfilling future and, like Moses and Martin Luther King, Jr., who
had been to the mountaintop, I could see promise stretching out far beyond my orbit. I was
one with it, an organic part of this pulsing, textured world. Hope, vision, dreams—those
siren sisters— shimmered, glistened, caressed and spelled my name. I had followed their
widening echo through a faltering age.
Now, the train sped through fields dotted with black-faced sheep, and ruminating, conten-
ted cattle. Just like the sheep and cows I had seen all those years before. And in a way I
was here to collect my dues. My life had not harvested the promise of all those years be-
fore. There had been deep folds and stains in that mountaintop tablecloth, rents and worn
patches that, in my enthusiasm, I had failed to notice, or that some more sanguine force
than I had kept invisible. Other parts of the tablecloth had been shot with a rich skein I had
likewise passed over. There was the golden haired dancer daughter, the son who taught me
that a full life inevitably involves soccer, and who could always make me smile; there were
friendships beyond my imaginings, a new place to call home and trips to distant lands. I
was here for an accounting, a taking of stock. I was here for another, more mature glimpse
of the tablecloth of promise and perspective. I was here to embroider “I live,” to see things
in a new light, to make some repairs, and to notice the new stitching ahead. There were
precious patches now, images seared into the fabric, people whose impression was sore and
beautiful. I was here, and I was here to say,
“I see it differently now; I am richer for what I saw and for its unfolding.”
The train pulled in to St. Bees station, an appropriately understated point of arrival and de-
parture. It was time to walk the Coast to Coast.
St. Bees is an unassuming town named after St. Bega, who, if you study the town sculpture
of her, stockily sailed across the Irish Sea in an unbelievably small laundry basket to escape
a forced marriage in Ireland, and form a religious settlement on the northwest coast of Eng-
land. Given the gory gynecological prospect for a woman of her time, her instinct for des-
perate self-preservation and independence is admirable. A determined lady who confron-
ted life's storms to claim her vision, Bega is undoubtedly a worthy role model for those
about to face the challenge of the Coast to Coast. The town also boasts a post office and
general store, a public school, a house named “Yan Tan Tetherer,” or one, two, three in old
shepherds' dialect, and a blustery headland above an exposed beach. It was here that Chris
and I, having traveled across a wider ocean than the indomitable St. Bega, spent a recov-
ery day—a day that led us away from the hostile rush of airports and stations, to the wider
rush of wind and sea. Accompanied by that great and oft under-rated, British comfort, tea,
we watched as other coasters selected their pebble, rinsed and rolled by the waves to an
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