Jane Hertenstein
Midden Piles
I was on a cross-country bike trip, riding solo from the UK, John O’Groats in Scotland to the tip in southern Cornwall, Land’s End, a journey of over 1,100 miles over nineteen days. I was in over my head with the constant roundabouts, headwinds, and my inability to stay on course. I was zigzagging between almost lost and actual lost.
I’d stopped at a caravan park in Lochgilphead, still the outer fringes of Scotland, where the next morning I awoke to fierce winds whipping up the narrow loch slip to a frothy brew. The proprietor had taken mercy on me and allowed me to stay in a camper instead of what I’d been doing—camping. He said stormy weather was on the way, and I might want to stay two nights. When I opened the little aluminum door it flew out of my hands and smacked the side of the trailer. I ran across the grounds to the bath/toilet house. Even within the cement block walls I could hear the wind whooshing.
At the shower house I met a woman who had recently retired. She was staying at the campgrounds while volunteering at a Bronze Age dig at the Kilmartin Dig. I’d passed signs for it on the way to a café stop at the museum.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t been spending much time just hanging out with locals, hearing their stories. Of course not, I was always on my bike or else collapsed in my tent. Anyway, I asked the woman to tell me about Kilmartin, to tell me what I had missed.
While growing up in Ohio, I’d ridden my bike to Fort Ancient, the name given to grave mounds that had been robbed of the bodies and artifacts of Native peoples. At Kilmartin there was something similar called cairns that were being excavated. Maggie went on to tell me there were also standing stones.
I’d been to stone circles in Sweden and Ireland, where ancient tribes oriented themselves within the bigger cosmos. I’m sure they had a much better grasp of where they were from and where they were going than I.
I asked her about buried treasure. It was slow going, she told me. Much like cycling, I reckoned. There are bright spots, nuggets in the midst of detritus. Always the biggest bonanza, she informed me, involved garbage. Come to find out that one person’s trash is literally another person’s treasure. Midden piles is how archeologists refer to the day-to-day domestic waste of a society. This refuse may contain such ordinary artifacts as animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, and sherds. It is in digging through the ordinary that one often finds a gem.
Good words for living, I thought.
Battling the winds back to the lonely caravan, I recalled I had little food. The story of my life—accidentally leaving leftovers at the restaurant or behind on the train, or when traveling losing my insulated food bag. I realized I’d left it in the hostel fridge in Oban. I would need to face the elements once again in search of a grocery. So I donned rain pants and a rain jacket and struggled forward. Flags and pennants stood out straight from poles. Awnings over doorways ballooned. I found a Co-op where I restocked my store of cheese and bread, cookies and crackers. On the way back to the caravan park was an Indian Takeaway. Curried friend rice sounded good on such a raw day. I told the kid taking my order that I’d cycled here. Why? He wanted to know.
I next stopped at a thrift store to buy another “wee” sack for food. Even here in Lochgilphead I wasn’t far from pop culture. In the multitude midden piles of linen dresser covers, lace tablecloths, plated tea spoons, little china creamers, souvenir Jubilee plates, I found a Backstreet Boys insulated lunch bag.
In the big picture, I wasn’t doing anything too out of the normal: thrift storing, shopping for groceries, getting takeout. I could have done all this without leaving home. But, here I was in wind-swept Lochgilphead, walking through a prism. Each facets of the experience slightly different, taking on new colors, a new slant. I realized this is what it means to travel, to take time and not just pedal the miles, but to live in the midden. The mess.
Jane Hertenstein is the author of over ninety published stories both macro and micro: fiction, creative non-fiction, and blurred genre. In addition, she has published a YA novel, Beyond Paradise, and a non-fiction project, Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady, which garnered national reviews. Jane is the recipient of a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times. She teaches a workshop on Flash Memoir and can be found blogging at http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/.
I’d stopped at a caravan park in Lochgilphead, still the outer fringes of Scotland, where the next morning I awoke to fierce winds whipping up the narrow loch slip to a frothy brew. The proprietor had taken mercy on me and allowed me to stay in a camper instead of what I’d been doing—camping. He said stormy weather was on the way, and I might want to stay two nights. When I opened the little aluminum door it flew out of my hands and smacked the side of the trailer. I ran across the grounds to the bath/toilet house. Even within the cement block walls I could hear the wind whooshing.
At the shower house I met a woman who had recently retired. She was staying at the campgrounds while volunteering at a Bronze Age dig at the Kilmartin Dig. I’d passed signs for it on the way to a café stop at the museum.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t been spending much time just hanging out with locals, hearing their stories. Of course not, I was always on my bike or else collapsed in my tent. Anyway, I asked the woman to tell me about Kilmartin, to tell me what I had missed.
While growing up in Ohio, I’d ridden my bike to Fort Ancient, the name given to grave mounds that had been robbed of the bodies and artifacts of Native peoples. At Kilmartin there was something similar called cairns that were being excavated. Maggie went on to tell me there were also standing stones.
I’d been to stone circles in Sweden and Ireland, where ancient tribes oriented themselves within the bigger cosmos. I’m sure they had a much better grasp of where they were from and where they were going than I.
I asked her about buried treasure. It was slow going, she told me. Much like cycling, I reckoned. There are bright spots, nuggets in the midst of detritus. Always the biggest bonanza, she informed me, involved garbage. Come to find out that one person’s trash is literally another person’s treasure. Midden piles is how archeologists refer to the day-to-day domestic waste of a society. This refuse may contain such ordinary artifacts as animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, and sherds. It is in digging through the ordinary that one often finds a gem.
Good words for living, I thought.
Battling the winds back to the lonely caravan, I recalled I had little food. The story of my life—accidentally leaving leftovers at the restaurant or behind on the train, or when traveling losing my insulated food bag. I realized I’d left it in the hostel fridge in Oban. I would need to face the elements once again in search of a grocery. So I donned rain pants and a rain jacket and struggled forward. Flags and pennants stood out straight from poles. Awnings over doorways ballooned. I found a Co-op where I restocked my store of cheese and bread, cookies and crackers. On the way back to the caravan park was an Indian Takeaway. Curried friend rice sounded good on such a raw day. I told the kid taking my order that I’d cycled here. Why? He wanted to know.
I next stopped at a thrift store to buy another “wee” sack for food. Even here in Lochgilphead I wasn’t far from pop culture. In the multitude midden piles of linen dresser covers, lace tablecloths, plated tea spoons, little china creamers, souvenir Jubilee plates, I found a Backstreet Boys insulated lunch bag.
In the big picture, I wasn’t doing anything too out of the normal: thrift storing, shopping for groceries, getting takeout. I could have done all this without leaving home. But, here I was in wind-swept Lochgilphead, walking through a prism. Each facets of the experience slightly different, taking on new colors, a new slant. I realized this is what it means to travel, to take time and not just pedal the miles, but to live in the midden. The mess.
Jane Hertenstein is the author of over ninety published stories both macro and micro: fiction, creative non-fiction, and blurred genre. In addition, she has published a YA novel, Beyond Paradise, and a non-fiction project, Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady, which garnered national reviews. Jane is the recipient of a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times. She teaches a workshop on Flash Memoir and can be found blogging at http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/.