Passing Places
There is a beach I like to go to where people pass through but few rarely stay. It’s affectionately known as Cow Beach thanks to the field of docile bovine femmes who flutter their eyelashes at your whilst chewing the cud, that you have to pass through to arrive at the water. The beach sits on the Helford River – a place known for its still blue waters, bobbing sailboats, rolling countryside and windswept Monterey pines which line the landscape.
To get here, you must drive through winding Helford back roads that twist and turn, where cars are forced to tuck into bushes and trees and muddy paths, sometimes in little dips called passing places. These are spaces that are deliberately temporary; somewhere to dip in so let someone else pass by; signposted specifically to stop people parking there and to allow the traffic to flow at all times.
This particular beach is small with a boathouse I’ve always dreamed of turning into a seafood shack where I’d sling freshly shucked oysters, crab sandwiches laced with anchovy mayo, and small stubby French beers that would stay cold in a bucket of iced sea water at all times; a small and uneven slipway that serves as the only real appropriate place to sunbathe; and large but smooth rocks instead of fine pebbles or soft sand. Because of its lack of classic beach comfort, and the fact that high tide leaves only a small strip of surface area to relax on, it’s a place where people might strip off for a quick swim on a hot day, sit with a pasty for half an hour, or – more likely – pass across as they walk the coast path between Grebe and Nansidwell.
It’s for precisely this reason I like to pitch up there for hours at a time, free to spread out on the slipway with all manner of food and drinks, my body ungazed upon, the sun and salt crystallising on my skin. And as I lie on the rocky slipway, my towel pinned down by smooth stones and still rippling in the easterly onshore winds, I hear people passing through or stopping on the stones for a short while, and I consider whether I am someone who has settled in their passing place for too long.
The passing place varies from person to person. Sometimes it’s a location, a person, or a state of mind that serves you temporarily, but was never meant to be inhabited. I have passed through cities and coasts, lovers and friends, sadness and mania. Sometimes I have stayed too long, whether desperately trying to make it work or simply cruising by, unaware of the fact I’ve been passively riding a wave without looking to see where it was taking me.
A thing that happens when you feel like you have finally landed into yourself: complacency. Since returning to Cornwall, I’ve allowed myself to settle into the comfort of being where I’m supposed to be, mainly focused on hosting dinners and friends to stay, painting my house, tucking into beaches on summer days or lighting fires when the wind blows. Selfishly, my goal in life is to make everything as easy as possible, which can look like both hard work and laziness all rolled into one.
This is to say, I have been complacent.
Creatively, I have felt that emptiness and challenge at times, but I haven’t been pushing myself to complete a creative achievement. I keep writing little notes in my phone with plot descriptions or character arcs or dialogues or monologues, but never have I sat down with the intention of writing for longer than an hour. Creativity comes in short dribbles not intense spurts, and I often let myself off the hook by saying things like, it’s ok if you never write a book, it’s ok if you’re unremarkable – what if life was just about having a lovely time with lovely people?
My career is a slightly different question, mired by the need for money but catalysed by the need to be creative (although I have been known to lay creativity to one side for a pay check). Lately, I’ve adopted a ‘pick your battles’ type of mentality – I’ve been internally struggling with the concept of making money through your art, wondering if it automatically ruins it, or if that’s just something lazy people like me say so they can abandon their creativity and just work to make enough money to go to nice restaurants and visit their friends in other countries for weeks at a time.
Of course everything is in some ways a passing place – the house is rarely forever, we hope the relationships are but not in my case; we outgrow the jobs or the jobs outgrow us; the bad moods eventually lift and the joy and ease can be just as quickly replaced with challenge and heartache. But recently, I’ve wondered if my attitude of ‘good enough’ has got me stuck in a quagmire of average to poor behaviour. It’s not that I’m dispassionate or unfeeling or creatively empty or emotionally numb – I’m just not constantly reaching for more, which sounds like it could be nice but sort of feels like I’m floating in space with nothing to tether me, nowhere to move towards, the atmosphere this vast, twinkling but ultimately futile thing.
After a few romantic knocks, I vowed to simply allow the universe to do its thing, wondering why I wasn’t meeting the love of my life in my house watching television, or in my circle of female friends, or driving to a beach so I can spend more time alone listening to Michael Barbaro in my headphones. Of course there’s something empowering about being totally ok with existing alone, but I am strangely sensitive to the possibility of having to be self-sufficient for the rest of my sad spinster life.
Naturally risk averse in all aspects of my life apart from love (famously known for inviting first dates to stay with me in Cornwall), I know that stubborn lack of desire to do things that take me out of my comfort zone can come across as (or might just well be) akin to laziness. In other words, a laissez-faire attitude that moves me so slowly through the passing place, that I forget that the road ahead might provide some brighter views if I simply stepped on the gas.
A few summers ago, I was hiking up Mount Snowden with a friend on a particularly hot day. We had been walking for hours and reached a rest-stop that gave us beautiful views of the Welsh mountainscape. It was about another 30 minute walk to the top, but upon looking up to the peak and seeing all the people queuing up to get to that specific spot, I turned to my hiking partner and said: “We could just stay here.” It was quiet and we were actually facing a different direction, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to walk up any further. Of course, I could have. My body had carried me that far, and was not too tired to climb further. But we descended, perfectly content, swimming in a river at the base, cutting slices of cheddar and sliding them into soft white rolls. I guess I’m romanticising it, and can’t quite tell whether this story is either a prime example of not obsessing over ‘reaching the top’, or if it’s simply a disappointing display of complacency and laziness. Perhaps it’s both.
The passing place is comfortable because it provides you more space. Once you move through, it’s often because the next section will feel more challenging – more obstacles, more opportunities to crash. I know growth is about sitting in discomfort. I hate being uncomfortable. I guess that’s the point.
Fuck.
So good as always -- and a relatable sentiment re: pushing yourself to take on creative challenges / being settled and happy with life as it is
Gorgeous as always. I see you.