Happy Anniversary to Us!

I fell in love with Matthew in Camelot. Our Camelot was a little wooded park/area, possibly public, possibly privately owned, right off the freeway near Springville. It was actually called Camelot, so I'm not just making stuff up. An irrigation ditch ran through it with a field on the other side, a log spanning the ditch the only way to get to the field.

I took Matthew there one day, to show him Camelot, and the trees, and how crazy it was that you could be that close to a busy freeway and still feel like you were in the middle of a (very small) forest. I really liked it there.

At this time, Matthew and I were not dating. We were very firmly in the 'friend zone,' with him dating other girls while we were just very good friends, after him making the comment once that his wife "will never touch the checkbook." (That shows you how old we are--checks were how you did the buying of things.) I wasn't interested in that kind of misogynistic control, so I wasn't upset that he was dating other people while still being my really good friend, because other than the checkbook thing, he was a really good, intelligent, handsome guy and we had a lot in common. (To be fair to Matthew, he doesn't remember ever saying that, and when we did get married, that was not his approach to our finances. To this day, we don't know how I heard him say that or why I would make it up if he didn't. But that was the state of affairs at this point in our relationship.)

So, Camelot.

I wanted to explore the field on the other side of the irrigation ditch, but I have a thing about walking on logs over water. I don't like it. I can be in water (I grew up in Oregon swimming in rivers all the time) and I can walk on logs on the ground (there are a lot of logs in Oregon to walk on). But you put a log over water, especially dirty water that I can't see through even though I know it isn't as deep as I am tall, and I will break out in heart palpitations and a queasy stomach.

I wanted to get to the other side, but I couldn't.

Along comes Matthew with this brilliant idea. We could scoot across on our butts. Not only that, but he would go first, facing backwards, so that I could focus on him, looking at his face, instead of the water below.

I was stunned. And touched. And a little bit twitterpated. Not only did he not tell me to get over it, he didn't even tell me I could scoot across while he did the manly thing and walked. Add to that, there was a four-year-old boy in cowboy boots and shorts that had been running full tilt back and forth on this log while we had been standing there, and once we started scooting he stood there and watched us like we were insane. "Are you scared?" "Can't you walk across? I can." "I can run." He wasn't exactly making fun of us, but he wasn't wasn't making fun of us either. And Matthew never acted embarrassed, never told the kid to go away, never really even acknowledged him. Just kept his eyes on me and told me to keep my eyes on him.

And that was when I fell in love with Matthew.

When we got to the other side, I found out that the supposed field was really a gateway straight to mosquito hell. I have never in my life had so many mosquitos land on me at the same time. Ever. I couldn't slap, shake, or scream them off of me fast enough. There were always more right there, doing their darnedest to suck me dry. So as soon as we could get the four-year-old to stop proving to us how easy it was to run across the log in cowboy boots, we scooted back.

The next day I went back to Camelot alone. I didn't tell anyone I was going. This was something I had to do for myself. And I walked across that log. Walked, not scooted. Several times. Somehow, Matthew allowing me to be afraid meant that I didn't have to be. Giving me permission to be flawed made me want to be better.

And that was when I fell in love with Matthew really hard. Which coincided with me no longer being okay with him dating other girls. Which is a whole other story.

There's a reason this experience affected me so much I wound up marrying the guy. Before I met Matthew I had dated someone else. I even thought I was going to marry him. On one of our dates he tried to take me on a tram that would take us to the top of a waterfall. It was a very windy, blustery night and I was terrified (it's possible that I'm also not fond of heights in general, not just logs over irrigation ditches). He cajoled and cajoled and cajoled some more. I refused (I am capable of great stubbornness when needed). When he finally gave up and we left, he was obviously annoyed. When we eventually broke up, that night was one of his issues with me. I didn't trust him enough to go up the tram with him. Or, maybe, he didn't respect me enough to listen when I told him I was terrified? (In justification of my fear, I found out later that there was a gust of wind that night so strong it blew the glass floor up inside the tram and broke it. To be fair, the tram was obviously empty at the time, and there was a metal grating underneath the glass, so nobody would have fallen though anyway. But still.) (Also, for the record, though I am still not terribly fond of heights, I have been on that exact same tram with Matthew on a far less windy night, and with him on a tram up the side of Mount Etna, and another one through the redwoods. Either being in love makes you stupid, or Matthew makes me feel safe.)

When I was in my teens and early twenties, my ideal heroine was a woman who was so strong she didn't need any man. Her ideal man was someone who understood that and waited for her, respecting her strength without quashing it to convince her to come to him. Eventually she chose him, not because she needed him, but because she wanted him. I have learned a lot since my twenties. It is possible to live without a man. It is possible to handle your own checkbook and walk across logs all by yourself. I guess that means I don't 'need' one? But I have done so many countless things in my life because Matthew was there with me. Maybe I would have eventually made it to Wales on my own, but I never would have gone to Sicily, or Amsterdam, or Nassau, or Barcelona. When the car needed a new radiator I would have had to pay a mechanic to replace it instead of Matthew watching videos so he could do it himself (then replay that scenario with a dozen different things around the house and yard and cars...you get the idea).

Sometimes the hero isn't out slaying dragons, but fixing the car with an eraser so he can bring your boys safely home from the middle of the desert. (True story.) And sometimes you aren't the heroine you always wanted to be, but you're getting closer because he believes in you.

I fell in love with my hero in Camelot. It doesn't get better than that.

Happy anniversary, Sweetheart.

Carreg Cennen

 I have to get a few things off my chest.

One, everything in Wales closes at 5:00, except for the things that close at 4:00. As a person who believes 10:00 is plenty early enough for breakfast, this gives me a very narrow window of sigh-seeing to work with, in no small part because of

Two, it takes for freaking ever to get from point A to point B in Wales (I am not at all convinced that it's any different in the rest of the UK (or Britain, or England, Scotland and Ireland, both Northern and not (since I don't think the roads are vastly different between the two)) but since I haven't experienced it for myself, I don't want to speak out of turn.) There is an old movie called The Reluctant Debutante where an American girl dances with an English boy at a ball and he spends the entire dance telling her which roads he took and why.

I thought he was just some weird, nerdy guy in the movie.

He was not. (Well, he was, but I have become him. Or I would if I had any idea what road I was on from one moment to the next. Which brings up point 2.1 where I have to say Google maps hates Wales (again, probably true elsewhere, but I can't speak from experience). When we were there in 2017, we came to a T intersection and Google had us turn left, when our destination was clearly to the right. Not wanting to get lost in the middle of the Welsh countryside, we followed Google, turned left, and then turned right, and then turned right, and then turned left onto the to road we had originally turned left off of and now heading in the direction we would have been going if we had turned right. All according to Google.This proved important later.)

Aside from Google's issues, who puts a round about on a freeway? And then puts a dozen freaking exits on it?!?! I cannot possibly count to eight when driving on the wrong side of the road.

There is also a problem with the width of the roads, which could be compared to the width of a car, but not the width of two cars. In point of fact, Google sent us down a road that said "no large vehicles" but did not say "one way". Even though Matthew and I could stick our hands out the windows and touch the hedges on both sides.

We were driving a Mini. At least it wasn't a 'large vehicle.' But the only other vehicle making it past us on that road would have been a bicycle, and we still would have had folliage in the window for that to happen.

See how I have totally digressed on driving in Wales? Just like nerdy guy at the dance.

Taking point one and point two into account, when we first went to Wales in 2017 we went out to see Carreg Cennen, a castle I had found doing research on places to go while we were there. It's set on a hill, has a cave under it, sounded cool. It wasn't far from where we were staying. 35.4 miles, as a matter of fact. We left in the early afternoon, plenty of time to go less than 36 damn miles (sorry for the swears--my brain does this before it explodes--or remembers exploding).

It. Took. Three. Hours.

That included turning left WHEN WE COULD SEE THE CASTLE TO THE RIGHT (it was on a hill, remember, so even though we weren't 'close' to it at the time, we could SEE it). That included sitting at the mouth of a road THAT WAS NO WIDER THAN OUR CAR WITH OUR ARMS STICKING OUT THE WINDOW and wondering what the hell we would do if we encountered another car coming towards us (sorry, brain exploding).

We got there ten minutes before it closed and they wouldn't let us in, since we had to walk up a hill to get to it and we would have just made it to the top of the hill when they locked the gates.

I was bitter.

A year ago today I finally made it to Carreg Cennen. And cheated on Caerphilly.

Oh my goodness. Who needs a moat when you have a hill?

Who needs a leaning tower when you have this view?

And, forgive me, who needs a family of dragons you can't even touch when you have an honest to goodness cave? Because we all know that cave was once home to a dragon. And the steps and passageway leading down to it? It was this fantasy-loving, fairytale-believing girl's dream come true.

The steps.

The passageway.

So, although Caerphilly will always hold a place in my heart, Carreg Cennen is my soul castle.

Also? It has bunnies.

I know it's impossible to see them, but that's a whole warren right there and there are bunnies in that picture, I promise. It was like Watership Down. I squeed a bit.

Caerphilly Castle

 Caerphilly Castle has been my favorite castle for decades. I don't know if it's the moat, if it's the leaning tower, if it's because it's in the middle of  a city, or if it's the moat (it might be the moat), but I have loved it forever.

When we went the first time, back in 2017, there was a glorious dragon inside the gate that you could stand next to and take pictures with. That was when I knew Caerphilly was my favorite castle because of the dragon.

A year ago today I was at Caerphilly again, my castle. The dragon was still there, but now you can't stand next to him. He has his own little den, because now he has a mate and two hatchlings to protect. Turns out, the best way to make a sexy guy even sexier is to make him a dad. It even works for dragons.

Wales

A year ago today I was on a plane flying to Wales. I may have discussed my love affair with Wales before, but that's irrelevant because I'm doing it again.

My uncle got The Chronicles of Prydain for me the Christmas I was thirteen. At the time I was a little devastated because I thought it was for kids and I was far too mature for that kind of nonsense. I soon realized the error of my ways (since I didn't get any other books and I had to read something) and it has had pride of place next to The Lord of the Rings ever since. I loved the story and the characters (I read it again for the second or third time in high school, and the day I finished the last book I laid on my bed and cried because I was saying goodbye to my friends. Even though I could have picked up the first book and started the whole thing all over again right then.) (Nobody gets out of high school emotionally unscathed.) I loved the lessons I learned. (Even though The High King won the Newberry, Taran Wanderer is my favorite of the series, and one of my favorite books of all time.) And I loved the world Lloyd Alexander had created.

This was back in the day when the internet looked exactly like the Encyclopedia Britannica in my school library (I wrote three papers on JRR Tolkien based on the half page of information about him in the encyclopedia, at which point my teacher informed me I had to pick a different author) so the only thing I had to go on was the little explanation Lloyd Alexander had put in the books saying that Prydain was based on Wales.

That was all it took. From the age of thirteen until...now, I have loved Wales. I love the castles (Wales has more castles per square mile than any other country). I love the language (I studied Welsh in college, though that doesn't mean I can speak it). I love the music and the poetry. I love the place names and the mythology. I love the green, the trees, the coast, the mountains, the rivers. And I love the castles.

So a year ago today I was on a plane heading to this place that I loved so very much. It was my second trip there, the first being seven years earlier. It surpassed all of my expectations. I did not know I would also love the sound of sheep bleating across the valley. Or the different dragons on the signs for the different parts of Wales (seriously, I don't know how Wales is devided up, but when we were at/in the Mumbles, the signs had a sea dragon, but when we were inland they had another dragon). I did not know I could love so many different kinds of sausage. I did not know I would feel bereft when I came home and did not have crumpets every morning for breakfast (and any other time during the day). I did not know that there is a Welsh accent that actually sounds like the people are singing when they are just talking. I didn't hear it all the time, and I could probably look it up if I wanted to, but sometimes the magic is in the mystery, and I am content to know it is out there.

I did not know that when I said I loved castles, that would include castles in store parking lots (looking at you, Neath Castle) and castles that were nothing but three and a half stone walls with a herd of sheep grazing inside (don't know the name of that one). Also, to paraphrase Tolkien, castles make long delays. Because there are so darn many, it is physically impossible to make it to your destination, even if it's a freaking castle, without stopping to look at another freaking castle along the way. Very pesky.

There are so many places in this world I would love to go to, and some I've been to that were never even on my radar (Italy, Amsterdam, Nassau, Barcelona). They were beautiful and unexpected, and I'm sure the bucket list places (Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany) are also beautiful. But they will probably be unexpected also, because if given a choice, I will always go back to Wales.

Ever since The Chronicles of Prydain.

That is the power of story.

PS I would be remiss if I did not include The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I didn't discover it until later, but The Grey King is set in Wales, and it confirmed what I already knew. Wales is the place for me.

A Tiny Wish

 A couple weeks ago I was reading The Tiny Wish, by Lori Evert. I love her books. She combines imaginative storytelling with gorgeous pictures to create truly magical books. This particular book involves an overly friendly goat that keeps ruining Anja's chances of winning hide an seek. Think, Mary Had a Little Lamb. Except with a goat.

Anja, in an attempt to finally win the game, wishes she was small, and her wish is granted. Suddenly, blades of grass are as tall as trees, she rockets down a bank on a pinecone, and she rides the rapids on a bark boat. She meets a squirrel, a duck, and a rabbit along the way, and she sees this amazing stuff called cottongrass. It looks like a truffula tree and a dandelion had an...encounter, and joined forces to make magical fluff.

I had to look it up after storytime, and guess what, it's real. (Cue squee sound!) I don't know why I've never heard of it. Apparently it grows here in the United States and not just in Scandinavia, but it doesn't grow here, here in the United States, because it likes bogs, and I live in an expletive desert. So, as of two weeks ago, I have added seeing cottongrass to my bucket list. Preferably in Scandinavia.

Just look at it. Itty bitty truffula trees.