What The Pebbles Told Me

My dream had come true but I was unable to feel it. It lingered on my skin but didn't have a sensation. It was surreal, unbelievable and kaleidoscopic. The enormousness of my reality played in front of me but hadn't quite absorbed me until that moment on that day. It was around noon on a Saturday; Artur had finished his morning shift at work - milked the cows and fed the calves. That same morning, he shifted a two-day old newborn he helped deliver, to an exclusive shelter. She had choked on her way to the world and breathed noisily. I followed Artur wherever he went, cow to cow, calf to calf, and stopping only to chat with the family that ran ‘The Fauld.’ Charlie smoked his pipe as he spoke to me. His heavy Irish accent was music to my ears, I grinned from ear to ear because I didn’t understand a thing he said.

Artur led me through somebody else’s farm to reach the river. The flowers around me glowed under the bright July sun; the grass was a soft, feathery, green bed. If one looked at the yellow flowers long enough, one’d imagine a smile on them. And in front of me was the River Esk in Cumbria of Lake District, England. I could still hear Artur tell me that if I walked along the river, I’d arrive at a big, beautiful castle where local boys and girls are still invited to ball dances, that I would pass through lovely forests and along an impressive tower, and that if I keep walking, I’d easily get into Scotland but it would be dark by then and I’d be cold. Artur’s voice faded as my realization shone brighter by the moment. I could see his hands move and lips smile in between words. I looked at the dried mud on my boots, ‘Cumbrian mud,’ I thought. The round, glistening pebbles under the water told me that I had really, indeed, travelled to a corner of the world far from home, on my own. I realized - ‘I am that girl on TV.’ In that moment, I could see that my dream was my reality. The feeling had a sensation on my skin, it felt warm.

I grew up watching TV at my friend’s house. Since I first watched a single woman backpacker travel through Europe, I longed to go on my own journey. When I could, I chose to go to the Lake District after years of imagining its beauty that drew the Romantics. This is a moment from my diary ‘England 2012,’ my first adventure at the age of 26 and solo. Artur is a young, Belarusian vet who worked on The Fauld. He was a stranger I wrote to asking if I could stay on his caravan for a few days. He said ‘Sure, come.’ I went.