The Salt Path

“It’s all right, I know you’re only doing your job, but it was the wrong decision, you do know that, don’t you?”

For the first part of the book, Moth is broken and despondent, but this moment illustrates an important quality of his character. Despite the circumstances, he calmly approaches the lawyer who worked against him and confronts him in open dialogue.

“What was he talking about? This wasn’t how we would die. It wasn’t Moth’s life; it was our life. We were one, fused, enmeshed, molecular. Not his life, not my life; our life.”

Raynor tries to make sense of the doctor’s diagnosis that Moth has a degenerative disorder. Here she uses two literary techniques that she turns to often, amplification and repetition, to highlight her state of mind. Amplification occurs when she describes them as “fused, enmeshed, molecular,” using this hyperbolic imagery to convey her love for Moth. She repeats “our life” to reinforce the height of her feelings.

“We drove home with the CD player at full volume, hiding in the noise. The mountains falling away below and the sea crashing over my head, my world was upside down. By the time the van stopped I was walking on my hands.”

The idiom “turn the world upside down” is made vivid through Raynor’s adoption of the literal perspective this saying implies. Having just lost her home, the absurdity of her situation is emphasized. This absurdity is also conveyed in the synesthetic description of “hiding,” visually, in “noise.” 

“I got the spade and started to dig, to bury Smotyn next to her sisters, in their field. Moth came out and we silently dug the hole together, refusing to speak, refusing to acknowledge the hole as it grew.”

Raynor and Moth bury an old ewe that has passed away just after the two have learned that their house will be taken away. The ewe’s death and the process of burying her represent the insurmountable troubles that they face.

“These weeks were changing the core of my relationship with them. There were things happening that I couldn’t protect them from. The balance was shifting, and I hated it. I wasn’t ready.”

Raynor reflects on how the court case has altered her relationship with her children. It is experienced as a sense of inversion in which her children are no longer her children and she is no longer simply their mother. This underscores the gravity of the memoir’s inciting incident, the court case, and suggests that she will spend the memoir undergoing character development.

“We took photos of the Somerset Levels on the mobile phone and photos of Americans and Chinese admiring us, photographing them, admiring Somerset Levels, and then walked back to town.”

Moth and Raynor often think about how others view them in contrast to how they view themselves, and this moment serves to highlight the complex meta-perception at play. They and others look at each other; at this point, people are “admiring” them, suggesting that they are being lauded for being walkers and not reduced to their unhoused status.

“‘You’ll see many things, amazing things, and suffer many setbacks, problems you’ll think you can’t overcome.’ He reached forward and put his hand on Moth. ‘But you will overcome them, you’ll survive, and it will make you strong.’”

Along the path, the pair come across many sage characters, but this is one of the most significant interactions. It acts as foreshadowing, and Winn refers to it a lot as the memoir continues.

“The coastline’s deceptive. A viewpoint in the distance seems to be just around the corner, but inevitably the headland in the foreground will be hiding valleys and bays and even entire stretches of moorland.”

This is a symbolic example of perspective-taking that will be explored throughout the book. Things that are near (both literally and figuratively) will often seem further away or closer than they actually are, including Moth and Raynor’s future.

“No wonder she’s hiding the scales. Hide the truth behind a front that distracts the eye. It’s a true representation of British justice. Anyone can have it, if they can afford to tip the scales.”

This statue is regarded as an eyesore by Moth and Raynor and a local with whom they interact. It is a direct symbol of their recent interaction with the justice system.

“Homeless, dying, but strangely, in that sweaty, dehydrated moment, shyly, reluctantly happy. Lucky bastards.”

This is a moment in which there is an important shift in how Moth and Raynor are viewed. These younger hikers’ perspective contrasts with the view they have of themselves and The Stigma of Life on the Margins they must confront from others.

“The more times we repeated the lie, the less we felt the grief. If we told ourselves the lie long enough, would the loss fade away, until eventually we could have it without pain? Maybe I was doing that with Moth’s illness too, or did I genuinely believe the doctor had made a mistake?”

This is an example of the open-ended contemplative questions that Winn often uses to explore themes and invite the reader’s criticism. Winn often explores questions related to the narratives that people tell themselves and others about themselves.

“Paddy Dillon eats spinach for breakfast, wears a hair shirt and sleeps on a bed of nails, obviously, because he walks from Bude to Boscastle in one day.”

This is an instance of sarcasm for Winn in which she implicitly contrasts her own experience on the trail with Dillon’s. They take roughly twice the time he does to hike the trail. This suggests that typical hiking guides and narratives are exclusive and inaccessible and do not consider older people or people with disabilities.

“Moth put half our rations next to the rags and we walked away, willing ourselves to turn our back on the flies. Not our place, not yet. But if stopped, stood still for a moment too long?”

Moth demonstrates generosity even in response to the hostility of one of the most despondent unhoused people they meet. Winn wonders if they could ever end up like him. This interaction both characterizes Winn and makes a political point about the lack of provisions from the government; the phrase “half our rations” creates an image of dividing something already meager.

“We hide ourselves so well, exposing our skin in youth when it has nothing to say, but the other skin, with the record of time and event, the truth of life, we rarely show.”

Winn has a complicated relationship with her age. Those whom she meets on the trail often describe her as old, and she and Moth often jealously observe younger people. Here she has a moment of reversal, in which she wonders if age should be of greater value.

“It was impossible to think that we were the same people who had stood at Hartland Point, with its bunting café; less still the broken shells that had stepped off the bus in Minehead. And before that? Out of reach, too far away, our home had drifted out of range. It existed, but the distance made it untouchable. The raw, jagged, visceral pain of loss had gone, but the memory of it was still there, if I close my eyes and let it come.”

Here, Winn provides a real sense of the psychological distance she feels from who she once was. The “jagged” nature of her pain reflects her descriptions of the coastline, which reinforces the metaphor of distance that she uses to explain her feelings.

“It’s touched you, it’s written all over you; you’ve felt the hand of nature. It won’t leave you now; you’re salted.”

Another sage character they come across on the trail speaks to the transformation they have undergone through their hike. While at times it can seem that the hike is merely a delay tactic, here there is some evidence from someone else that it has led to lasting change for them. The symbol of salt represents the transformation they have undergone.

“No welcome committee, no celebration, just two wet people clinging to a post. The shops were closed, even Arthur and his knights had abandoned the Arthurian experience for something drier.”

Moth and Raynor’s arrival at Land’s End proves to be an anticlimax. The destination offered a sense of purpose, but they quickly discover that once they attain it, they are lost. The anticlimax is reflected in the wry observation about “Arthur and his knights”; Moth and Raynor’s quest turned out to have no object.

“They don’t talk to you about it because it’s you that has the problem, not them. They talk to me. We’ve talked frankly about it all. It’s going to be hard, it is hard, but they’re strong.”

It is a revelation that Raynor is the only family member struggling with denial about Moth’s condition. One important subtext in the book is that Rayon feels that her relationship with her children has been inverted and that she is no longer the caretaker.

“Had I seen enough things? When I could no longer see them, would I remember them, and would just the memory be enough to fill me up and make me whole? He walked away, slowly back the way he came. Could anyone ever have enough memories?”

This is another instance of contemplative questions, a rhetorical strategy Winn uses throughout the book to ponder the seemingly imponderable. Through The Struggle to Overcome Adversity, Winn implicitly has to imagine what life could be like without Moth, but she largely avoids facing this possibility directly, typically only alluding to it as subtext.

“I was intensely grateful for a roof, but hollow inside, an emptiness crept over me. My days had no meaning, just a repetition of toil with no purpose for us, other than to keep warm and dry. I was alone among friends.”

Raynor’s mental state and Moth's health decline while they stay in Polly’s shed. The subtext here is that housing was not exactly the problem they had to solve for themselves, and they still have unresolved issues that they have failed to confront.

“How can there be so few individuals who understand the need for people to have space of their own? Does it take a time of crisis for us to see the plight of the homeless? Must they be escaping a war zone to be in need? As a people, can we only respond to need if we perceive it to be valid?”

This moment, a mix of contemplative and rhetorical questions, represents the climax of Winn’s rumination about The Stigma of Life on the Margins. Key to this moment, and what separates it from earlier moments, is the recognition that society doesn’t address homelessness because it doesn’t see everyone’s plight as valid.

“Skin on longed-for skin, life could wait, time could wait, death could wait. This second in the millions of seconds was the only one, the only one that we could live in. I was home, there was nothing left to teach for, he was my home.”

Raynor and Moth make love for the first time in a while. This is a joyous moment, but it is fleeting, and it emphasizes the various tensions that have existed throughout the book. It underscores the ambiguous ending and suggests that Raynor is only setting herself up for more severe heartache through such statements as Moth’s condition deteriorates.

“Then you must do it. If you feel you have a question, you must answer it. Do it before you go home.”

Raynor offers advice to a young woman who craves adventure. This is a seemingly contradictory statement from Winn, who constantly asks questions that she cannot hope to answer. This highlights character development for her, who has moved from asking to answering.