Wandering

I've been thinking recently about what the attraction of walking is to me. It's not a new musing, but the answers become more clear at different times, then wax and wane almost as with the moon.

There's the obvious link, connection to nature. It's a fundamental part of me, and I suspect, most if not all those who chose to follow what I write. It's a part of me that has grown since I can remember living in Norfolk where I moved to when I was 7. In fact even before then I remember in Nottinghamshire playing in the fringes of the school field, in the scrubby bushes at the intersections of paths running behind houses. Funny to think that those vague memories have had such an impact.

Norfolk was like a Betjeman poem, an age of long lost innocence. Allowed to roam free in the fields, being in effect a young naturalist, knowing the movement and patterns of birds and flowers. The trees spoke most to me; the rivers I swam in in the summer, away from the pike who were supposed to eat young childrens toes!

Moving to Sheffield when I was 12 actually felt like a huge blow. The Sheffield I knew at that time was limiting. I didn't discover the moors for a few years until I started wandering out there after school. Foreign bird life, plant life, smells of the peat. Different to the Broads. My connection with nature was regained to some extent through studying English Lit at O level (I was the last year to study these!), reading Betjeman and other poets of that bygone era. Reading also the classics, Brontes, Eliot, but especially developing an affection for Thomas Hardy. My sentimental nature was developed further by walking alongside Jane Eyre as she sacrificed herself on the altar at Stonehenge. I used to wonder at the characters in Hardy's novels, the distances they would walk across Salisbury Plain, often developing life threatening illnesses in the process.

Fast forward into my more adult life where I discovered other authors through various friends and influences. The inspiration seemed to be more haphazard. I read Patrick Leigh Fermor as he travelled across Europe around the time of the first World War, Nicholas Crane walking his umbrella along the spine of mountains, even travels in Albania (Those Accursed Mountains!), and spiritual quests with Paulo Coelho and Gerard Hughes. They seemed to engage more with the spirit of place than I think I'd allow myself to see recently. I do like to stop and examine and contemplate as anyone who has had the pleasure of my walking company will know. I think this is an essential part of my experience and one that achieving a certain mileage a day may limit.

Recently my yearning has been to walk the PCT; reading Chris Townsend's Great Backpacking Adventure and even this year, Dan White's Cactus Eaters got the wanderlust juices flowing. But how much may my experience be compromised by having to walk?

Thoughts seem to have crystallised more recently in that I find the sense of journeying without necessarily a trail to follow, very appealing. It's a sense of discovery, of myself and the surroundings. The same passage of miles under my feet, but maybe not in a sense of being so planned.

I personally don't know if this is the right 'path' for me, and I am aware of a certain naivety perhaps. But at present that is what draws me in. The journey. The wandering in the truest sense!

This post is pure indulgence for me, and without regard almost for any readership. It's an expression of my current thoughts and feelings and where I gain and may seek spiritual nourishment from, as it is indeed a very spiritual experience for me. Maybe something I will write further on in the future.

Norfolk
by Sir John Betjeman

How did the Devil come? When first attack?
These Norfolk lanes recall lost innocence,
The years fall off and find me walking back
Dragging a stick along the wooden fence
Down this same path, where, forty years ago,
My father strolled behind me, calm and slow.

I used to fill my hands with sorrel seeds
And shower him with them from the tops of stiles,
I used to butt my head into his tweeds
To make him hurry down those languorous miles
Of ash and alder-shaded lanes, till here
Our moorings and the masthead would appear.

There after supper lit by lantern light
Warm in the cabin I could lie secure
And hear against the polished sides at night
The lap lap lapping of the weedy Bure,
A whispering and watery Norfolk sound
Telling of all the moonlit reeds around.

How did the Devil come? When first attack?
The church is just the same, though now I know
Fowler of Louth restored it. Time, bring back
The rapturous ignorance of long ago,
The peace, before the dreadful daylight starts,
Of unkept promises and broken hearts.