What Can I Say About Devon

Don’t kid yourself—if you don’t live in the United Kingdom, you haven’t heard of Devon. Perhaps you’ve heard of all the other big ‘D’s like Dover, Dorset, and Dartmouth, but you have no idea what or where Devon is. That is just fine. Everyone in England knows what it is (it is a county) and where it is (on the southwest peninsula next to Cornwall), and everyone who lives in Devon wishes fewer people knew about it—perhaps allowing it to stay as it is for another generation. So no harm is done.

Most Excellent Superlatives

Don’t we all love superlatives? The best! The fastest! Geographically, we love the tallest, the northern-most, the largest and the smallest. But Devon is without superlative. It is not the most distant south nor the farthest west. It is not the largest nor the smallest county. It is not the oldest nor the newest. It just is. And wonderfully, it just is.

If Devon isn’t the most beautiful place in the world (oops, there I go with the superlatives again), it certainly deserves an honorable mention. Anyway, being able to claim such a title would only lead to vanity and more tourists. Devon cannot boast of Tintagel Castle, the legendary home of King Arthur, or Stonehenge and the mysterious people who built such a wonder so long ago. Still, it has a stone circle or two of its own and many spots where someone could have put a castle if they’d been so inclined.

Instead, Devon’s places of interest include a rock formation that looks like a man with a pointy nose and the final resting place of a scorned woman who hung herself in a (presumably charming) timber-framed barn. Picture a Victorian-era townhouse with the tea room and parlor converted into an ad hoc museum decked out with the scenes of bucolic life including letters home from the children of Londoners who were sent to the country to avoid the Blitz. Yeah, Devon has places like that. And roadways so old they carve their way into ruts six feet below the surround.

I think perhaps Devon isn’t wonderful in spite of its lack of superlatives but due to their absence. Superlatives bring stress. Think of that kid in school who took such pride in being the most intelligent but was so stressed that someone might prove to be more so. Or that fellow who lays claim to being the toughest guy around but deep down is always terrified that someone will show him up. I wouldn’t want to be either of those guys. Now think of that chap who’s kinda smart and reasonably sturdy; he doesn’t have anything to worry about. And in the same way, Devon is relaxed and comfortable.

The Dentist’s Office that is Lockdown

Places aren’t really places without context. And given a choice, we like to define the parameters of our travels. We specify that this trip will be a “honeymoon” or a “business trip.” In this way, we are able to dictate how a place will show up for us. But sometimes the world chips in some parameters too. For us, the universe provided context for Devon—like it or not—in the form of COVID and loosening lockdown restrictions.

Lockdown feels like a dentist’s waiting room. Many of us have been in this room for months. We know there are people much worse off than us, and we know we ought to count our blessings for being healthy, yet we just can’t shake the feeling of discomfort that pervades. It’s like sitting in a serviceable but slightly-musty, linen-upholstered, stiff-backed chair. It isn’t a torture device, but it’s not precisely first-rate. To pass the time, we’re reading a nine-year-old gossip magazine with various pages written on, torn out, and coffee-stained. The coffee stains make us think that perhaps we can get something to drink, but our hopes are chimerical at best; everything is closed. We can use the drinking fountain, just be careful; the water is lukewarm and shoots up to catch you in the eye when it first turns on (and who knows what germs might be on it). We could conceivably read a book, but we forgot to bring one. We think there might be some entertainment on our phone, but our battery just died, and all of the outlets are of an unknown foreign configuration, defying our adapters.

There isn’t much to occupy ourselves in this dentist’s office that is actually purgatory; I mean lockdown. And the longer we sit in the waiting room, the more convinced we become that our name will eventually be called, and we’ll be escorted in for a root canal or worse.

Would this feeling ever end? And how?

The New Normal

On the 4th of July—presumably, to celebrate America’s signing of the Declaration of Independence—England took the next tentative step in the process of returning to a new kind of normal. Namely, the pubs re-opened. Thus we and a couple million of our closest British friends decided to—oh so tentatively—venture out of our dentist’s waiting room to brave the proverbial storm presented by the virus and bask in the literal sun that shines this time of year in the UK.

For us, Devon was the beautiful, wonderful, powerfully freeing place where we were able to—timidly—experience some of the small joys that had been held from all of us these many months.

Not So Locked Down

The first, and perhaps most important thing of all for the Five Backpacks Family—it’s domestic tranquility and general welfare—was that I was able to have a draught Guinness for the first time in I don’t know how long. Dentists’ waiting rooms don’t have Guinness taps (though maybe they should).

The second thing that set our hearts to singing was that we found a public piano for the first time in forever. It was, of course, in a pub. No, they did not have Guinness on tap. Nevertheless, sitting back after a long day of hiking and listening to my son play the piano to the approbation of the handful of other guests and skeleton crew running this mostly ignored pub brought me great contentment.

The third notable occurrence in Devon did not occur in a pub (and shame on you for assuming that it did). This one was of a much different constitution. It had to do with beauty, yes, but also of challenge and esprit de corps.

Early one misty morning, beginning at the door of our 200-year-old thatch-roofed barn converted into a cute little cottage, we started walking. We walked between hedgerows, over fields, and on to stone outcroppings—including the one that looks like a man with a large nose. We continued across moorlands, past the ruins of a medieval village, through a living town with delicious baked goods across the street from the massive stone church, and over more oddly shaped outcroppings of rock (that did not look like noses) on windswept greens. For a while, we followed tracks made of granite that once guided wagons full of the same from quarry to ship and on to build the London Bridge. When, at last, we took our final steps to the stoop of our cottage, we had hiked no fewer than fifteen miles, a new family record.

Some of us did so with adult-length legs, and some of us did it with 11, 9, and 7-year-old-length legs. I’m particularly proud to say that regardless of leg length (or the age of their knees), the faces held only smiles, and the lips only made festive sounds. The Devon circuit completely reset our calibration of what a short versus long hike is, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we beat that record again in the months to come.

The Winding Path of Thoughts

With all this traveling—and waiting—and traveling yet again, we are coming to understand in what kind of community we want to make our someday home. And it is one without superlatives. It is a place without its own keychains or kitschy t-shirts. A place not too well-trodden for wildflowers to grow.

I want to live in a place that conjures memories of boyhood and mysteries for a good novel—a place with a delicate balance between time with people and time with wide-open spaces. In my mind’s eye, there is a long walking path that, traveling one way, takes us deeper into personal reflection or, traveling the other, closer to those with whom we wish to share those thoughts.

Perhaps Devon earned extra points for being the first place where we could move about with some degree of freedom, but it is easy for me to imagine returning to this land of seaside towns, rocky crests, pastured hills, and lone thatched cottages. Here, one can go for a long hike through rolling moorland, find a pub with Guinness on draught and a public piano, and the restorative company of family, friends, and strangers alike. Perhaps someday you’ll join us in Devon for a hike or a pint—or maybe both.

Comment Questions

• Are you familiar with Devon, and if so, are there any superlatives that you would apply to it?
• What do Dartmoor, Dartmeet, and Dartmouth have in common?
• Have we betrayed Devon by telling outsiders about it?
• What kind of place would you like to live in?