A few years ago, I met my parents in Southampton after spending time with a friend in France.  We had several missions for that trip, including visiting Wales.  This trip was very emotional, because my Grandfather had come to the United States from Wales as a very young man, settled in Pennsylvania, worked in the coal mines, and supported his family.  He didn’t work in the mines his entire life, but when you’re Welsh, coal forms the context of who you are as a person and a community; there is no way coal doesn’t affect you in some way.  At least, it did for my Grandfather in Wales and in Pennsylvania.

 

 

We visited many places in Wales, including the town where my Grandfather lived.  We also drove extensively through the landscape and saw the remnants of what must have been collieries as far as the eye and body could see.  Piles of shale and rugged low rising mountains.  What roughness, what murky beauty.

The coasts of Wales are exquisite.  They are different than any other; there is a rustic elegance.  I knew I wasn’t in England, it didn’t feel like Ireland, and it was a wildness different than even Scotland.  We stayed a few days in a charming seaside town called Criccieth on Cardigan Bay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Criccieth is one of those towns you could stay for a while.  Staying at the charming seaside hotel, I felt completely hidden; I had the feeling that no one would find me there.  I was in the center of the universe; I was in the center of nowhere.  Perhaps that’s just the wonderful after effect of travel; it allows you to escape into a different time.  In the case of Wales, I escaped into myself.