how i ended up in falmouth

i have met a man who is truly extraordinary, within a town that has no shortage of extraordinary men.

i met him perched inside his home. a four wheeled box enlisted with a bout of technology i cannot even begin to comprehend, let alone explain to you.

one day i stumbled upon his van and said hello, interrupting a date of his with a solar-powered carbonara he had made. it looked wonderful.

this letter is not about the solar-powered carbonara, or this wonderful individual in question, but instead about an idea of his he shared with me while his carbonara was quickly cooling.

shatonga.

see, we humans have been led to believe that life should be led with logic and sense. we think we should make a plan, then act upon it and leave as little room for error as possible.

my friend explained to me that he had made this carbonara, and he had planned to eat it. my showing up was unexpected and had diverted him from his plan of consuming said carbonara. if he had been determined to live his life according purely to logic, he would have politely asked me to leave so he could get back on track with eating his carbonara.

but had he done that, we would’ve missed out completely on our conversation, which we both agreed proved to be worth having to reheat his food.

shatonga is the unpredictable possibility of occurrence when one allows logic to be replaced by spontaneity.

shatonga leads us to do things that we logically never would’ve even thought would be possible.

conversations, experiences, places, foods that we never even could’ve imagined, are presented to us through shatonga, if we allow them to.

a lot of people are reluctant to let go of logic and order, because the only reasonable replacement is nonsensical chaos. however, it is in this nonsensical chaos that we experience the sweetest moments of life. and it is in this nonsensical chaos that we can be led to where we truly want to be.

at the beginning of june, i set out to hitchhike from dublin to newquay, in cornwall.

i was on a mission to get to newquay to work as a lifeguard and a surf instructor for the summer, and the logical side of my brain was convinced that this was a good idea. it made sense, it would be best for me.

things were going great. i did a lifeguard course in devon and continued my way towards cornwall.

my first night in wales i ended up sneaking into a music festival with a 2 year old girl, thanks to someone who picked me up and invited me along. it was a bit out of the way and didn’t quite make sense for me to go, but i went anyway and had a wonderful time.

shatonga.

over the space of three days, seventeen different wonderful people picked me up with their assortment of vehicles and stories and helped me along my journey to get further and further south within the uk.

somewhere around bodmin, i was picked up from the side of the a30 by a wonderfully moustached man in a blue van that had nothing but a double mattress in the back of it.

he pulled a terribly dangeous manouver when he saw me, going from 100 miles an hour to a complete stop within a second, while traversing along two lanes on a busy road. this man was determined to pick me up so i knew we’d get along well.

he asked where i was off to, i said newquay and he said hop in.

we had a decent bit of driving to get through and we became quickly engrossed in conversation ranging from ancient methods of carpentry to our favourite sea shanties, and mutually decided that we enjoyed each others company.

we were fast approaching the exit for newquay, where he would inevitably drop me off, when he turned his head, looked me in the eyes and said something along the lines of

“louis, i don’t think you should go to newquay. go to falmouth instead, you’ll have a far better time”

i had never heard of falmouth before, but i trusted this man, i could see in his eyes that he wanted to help. he had a good understanding of what i was here to do and clearly was determined to ensure i accomplish my mission.

it was then that i realised i wasn’t on a mission to be in newquay and work as a lfieguard, but instead to go and have an adventure, experience something new.

alright man, fuck it. take me to falmouth i said.

ludo drove over an our out of his way to drop me at the top of the high street in falmouth and wish me luck with my adventures.

my mission did not go according to it’s original plan, not at all.

i’m not in newquay now, i’m not working as a lifeguard and i did not plan to be living in a caravan with a circus community, yet here i am.

i couldn’t be happier.

i’m sure sure to what extent i believe in fate, but i do believe that it wasn’t mere coincidence that put me in the van with the moustached man.

had i been determined to stick to my logical, sense making plans, i’d probably be living in newquay now.

i’m writing this on the 21st of july, six weeks after first arriving in falmouth and today i went to newquay for the first time.

it’s a complete shithole.

shatonga,

louis