March 2002 - Porthtowan

After my miserable day on Wednesday the last two days have been great. Yesterday I met someone walking the whole path for the first time. His name was Bert and he had come from Belgium specifically to walk the coast path. This reminded me of just how lucky I am to live on the path, in two locations! And how lucky I am to be walking it now. We walked together for a little while before parting ways at St Agnes where Bert shot off in the distance. I think we both felt ever so slightly attached to each other when we met, as I too was the first long distance walker he had met on the path so it felt like a really rare meeting - like finding a "Dark Shiny Charizard" at school (This was the rarest of collectible Pokemon cards when I was 8 years old). I never found one, but here just outside St Agnes I had! I was reminded of the dark shiny Charizard as he disappeared into the distance with his shiny silver back pack.

After staying with the actor Trevor Cuthburtson in St Agnes, I made my way to Porthtowan today, passing the famous tin mine pump house "Wheal Cotes" on the way. I met with one of my lecturers, Fred, for a coffee and a chance to tell him all about how the project was going. This was great, but did make me miss Falmouth a little, but this is fine as I am on my way to Falmouth as we speak! (Even if it will take me another 27 days to get there!)

Not a lot of creating has gone on over the last few days to be honest. I hope you have seen my little Western film that I made at Cligga Head, because I am secretly incredibly proud of it, and it was so fun! However the lack of creation has certainly been made up for by a mass of thinking as I walk. I am experiencing a certain shift in the project. I am beginning to get bored of the forms I have been using and am beginning to think more analytically about what I'm doing, and set my sights on the final performance a little more. It is almost as if my understanding of the project is maturing as I age through the walk. Indeed today I am 9 years and 1 month old, so it is quite realistic that I am starting to analyse what I am doing a little more. I am set to deliver an "Artist's Talk" in Penzance at CAZ on November the 23rd, so I am beginning to start thinking about how I might combine my random fragmented creations with some more analytical thoughts on the project so watch this space for some slightly more academic or reflective creations perhaps, we will see!

I've spent the last 5 hours in the Unicorn pub in Porthtowan, but I'm about to head back up to the Eco Park where I have kindly been allowed to camp for free, although its about 20 minutes walk up hill along a pitch black footpath and its raining - To say I'm procrastinating here is an understatement!

I never know what phrase to use to end these bloody things, I am going to try shouting "cheese".

CHEESE.

1 comment:

  1. I didn't know where to put this, so I'm putting it here... 'If I am walking, I almost feel the current of time slowing down in the gravitational field of oblivion. It seems to me then as if the moments of our life occupy the same space as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them at last, just as when we have accepted an invitation we duly arrive in a certain house at a given time. And might it not be that we have an appointment to keep in the past, in what has gone before and is for most part extinguished, and must go there in the search of places and people who have some conntection with us on the far side of time so to speak' W.G. Seebald, Austerlitz. But I found it as part of Carl Lavery's performance 'Mourning Walk' the text and images are published in walking writing and performing

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