I'm past the exhaustion now, past the pain. I've rested and relaxed and come through to the other side. The mania of forcing myself to the finish, the focus and exhilaration of constant praise and good wishes, of struggling to take my body through the final few months of nothing but constant movement.
The other side is a place where the walk is just a thing I did once, where it's not the only thing I can talk about, no longer the first thing to my lips, it's just another story now, just a quirk from the past. I'm just an apprentice baker who lives in a small Welsh town. I am ordinary again.
And yet, what is left behind after this intense experience washed through me? It's hard to find a perspective in my post walk landscape. I am too busy doing things to stop and gain a point of view.
While I was walking my time was completely my own and now I have parcelled it into chunks in exchange for things, money, mostly but also vegetables and a place to stay. I attend courses, I volunteer, I have appointments, I have friendships, I even have (whisper it) a boyfriend and somehow the time for creativity, for simply existing while words come to me, has been nibbled away until I am either doing things or travelling in between them. Is this called adult life? Is this what you were all doing as I trundled through the countryside, using my expanse of time to cover an expanse of land.
While I was walking I had so much time, there was only one task to do and it was so enormous, I couldn't grab hold of it, pin it down, I merely swam in it, taking it along one stroke at a time. My days were more than walking though, my mileage so small that I could stop and stare whenever I wanted, at sunlight on hillsides, at birds fighting for space in the sky, at the pattern of lichen on stones, at mosses, cows, crashing waves. There were many pauses for contemplation as I moved slowly and sometimes painfully through the land.
I miss that, the time I had to sit and think. I didn't realise it wasn't a part of ordinary life and I want it back.
I remember sitting in a field that sloped down from castle walls, waiting for darkness to fall so I could sleep there. I sat still, so peaceful in the quiet of approaching dusk that a wren hopped through the hedge beside me, I could turn my head gently to watch its small round body flitting and fluttering, inches from my own.
I miss the simplicity of a single task to complete - I am learning to grow vegetables, I am learning how to be a baker, I am learning how to be a girlfriend, I am learning how to live in a small town, how to have small conversations with people you see every day. There is also a book to write, more ovarian cancer awareness raising to work on, a boat to rebuild, savings to build up, the next journey to plan for.
So I'm doing my best. Time passes, I have dreams and I'm doing my best. This is also adult life, I guess.
The other side is a place where the walk is just a thing I did once, where it's not the only thing I can talk about, no longer the first thing to my lips, it's just another story now, just a quirk from the past. I'm just an apprentice baker who lives in a small Welsh town. I am ordinary again.
And yet, what is left behind after this intense experience washed through me? It's hard to find a perspective in my post walk landscape. I am too busy doing things to stop and gain a point of view.
While I was walking my time was completely my own and now I have parcelled it into chunks in exchange for things, money, mostly but also vegetables and a place to stay. I attend courses, I volunteer, I have appointments, I have friendships, I even have (whisper it) a boyfriend and somehow the time for creativity, for simply existing while words come to me, has been nibbled away until I am either doing things or travelling in between them. Is this called adult life? Is this what you were all doing as I trundled through the countryside, using my expanse of time to cover an expanse of land.
While I was walking I had so much time, there was only one task to do and it was so enormous, I couldn't grab hold of it, pin it down, I merely swam in it, taking it along one stroke at a time. My days were more than walking though, my mileage so small that I could stop and stare whenever I wanted, at sunlight on hillsides, at birds fighting for space in the sky, at the pattern of lichen on stones, at mosses, cows, crashing waves. There were many pauses for contemplation as I moved slowly and sometimes painfully through the land.
I miss that, the time I had to sit and think. I didn't realise it wasn't a part of ordinary life and I want it back.
I remember sitting in a field that sloped down from castle walls, waiting for darkness to fall so I could sleep there. I sat still, so peaceful in the quiet of approaching dusk that a wren hopped through the hedge beside me, I could turn my head gently to watch its small round body flitting and fluttering, inches from my own.
I miss the simplicity of a single task to complete - I am learning to grow vegetables, I am learning how to be a baker, I am learning how to be a girlfriend, I am learning how to live in a small town, how to have small conversations with people you see every day. There is also a book to write, more ovarian cancer awareness raising to work on, a boat to rebuild, savings to build up, the next journey to plan for.
So I'm doing my best. Time passes, I have dreams and I'm doing my best. This is also adult life, I guess.
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