The Journey

The wind blew across the escarpment. Every so often the clouds scudded away from the hills above revealing the shark’s tooth of the rocky cliff, awesome in its magnificence, awful in its bleakness. The man shuddered when it appeared and yet was drawn forward, a siren luring him ever upwards. The peaty heather crunched underfoot, clinging desperately to the hillside but even its dwarf-like status could not escape the wind.  The gale increased, the rugged tufts waved the walker ever upwards. Wet sleet suddenly appeared from the west, rain with an identity crisis. It did so want to be snow but October forbade it.  So now he was wet-faced, wind-borne and windswept.  His feet were dry, his hands were gloved, his bonnet sat on his head, his flask of hot tea nestled in his back pack, his cheese and pickle sandwiches were buried deep in its dry.

Why had he made this trek on this day? His thoughts returned to the beginning of the day, the moment in the youth hostel when cyclists and walkers, day trippers and touring groups were rethinking their plans because the day promised only cloud and mist, dreich and gale, a six foot view of everything the same. But this man on this day was going to try to suborn his dark mood, his disillusionment with the world at large through physical exhaustion.  It was quite simple, his black dog had been an ever present for weeks now. He refused to medicate, was adamant that he was not going to burden his friends,  despised the idea of professional help.

As he approached he knew that the stark, threatening rock face hid a secret. If he could find his way round the corner to the south he knew there was an easier, well-trodden path to the top.

“My grannie could do it,” he muttered to himself.

The walker, like Montaigne, ‘refolded his gaze inward’, thought about his emotional journey over the past few years and suddenly knew with scintillating clarity that every pathway he had taken then, every step that he was taking now was inevitably an inescapable part of who he was. In his life it was impossible to stray from the path because there was no path.  And that thought brought him up short because he realised that this was the same for everybody. Carlisle said,

“A life of ease is not for any man.”

“Or any woman either.”   He voiced woke-ish acceptance even here where only the wind heard and the heather waved and the sleet fell and the rugged rock stood stalwart and indifferent.

Trying to make sense of where he was in the world was not going to be accomplished in a day. But he knew that the deepness of his being had a form of survivor’s guilt. The weight of freedom and privilege lay heavily about him. Luck and good fortune had been ever present and become a burden. He saw war, pestilence, death and starvation; he saw floods, drought, landslides, collapsing glaciers, polluted waters. He felt powerless. His days should have been ones of joy and gratitude but somehow they weren’t. He should have no frowns but only smiles. He wanted the world to heal but knew not how to make it so. He needed a purpose.

He reached the point where the heather met the bare rock and began to skirt the base, now going steeper upwards but still on the path, edging the edge,  ever rounding the corner where he would leave the greenery and find the path through the scree and rock fall. As he curved the bend, suddenly there was no wind. The blowing sleet adjusted its approach from sideways to vertical. The clouds still raced above but the calm was welcome here below. Now he could hear his own breath, he noted the sound of boot on rock, the sudden onset of warmth. He smiled to himself. He had an unfounded feeling of unbounded joy. It was good to be here and to be alive. There was no better place in the world to be than right here right now.  If he had had strength to skip or breath to shout he would have done so but the straightening of his back, the upping of his pace, the flow of his eagerness was enough.  He was about an hour from the peak but suddenly time did not matter.  The now mattered, not the past, nary the future, just the flow of now. He was at peace.

50 yards from the top the wind suddenly found him once more, the sleet began again to slant into his eyes. By this time, his shoulders and back were feeling the weight of his sack, the muscles in his legs were beginning to burn. And suddenly he was there, afoot  the small plateau that had flattened out a welcome mat for his achievement, a receipt for his purchase. The man-made cairn signified the top. He found the leeward side, took off his pack and sat for a moment to savour.  He knew that below him to the west swirled the Atlantic Ocean, but he could not hear the break of its waves because of the wind. He knew that on the eastern side where he sheltered would be the glen and the narrow strip of roadway where he had parked.  But all was invisible to him.  He stretched out the moments that he sat, elastic and strong. He knew that darkness and danger would arrive all too soon and that he would soon have to move.

He was careful on the downward scree but as soon as he hit the cushioned peat he strode with confidence.  His knowledge of the terrain was good but about half an hour into his descent he decided that he would take a short cut to where his car was parked.  He set off well enough but soon found himself in wet moss and, further still, leaping from solid ground to solid ground, making slow progress through a bog then sinking and floundering helplessly as he missed his footing and had to extract himself again and again from the peaty morass. And the sleet turned to rain and the wind blew and he lost his way. And his legs burned and his feet and calves were soaked and muddy and every step was a gamble and a strain  But he knew roughly that the high ground was on his left and that he just had to keep bending right and he would hit the road. But like most short cuts he had taken in his life, his descent had turned into a long epic haul. ‘Why use a teaspoon when a hammer will do?’ should have been his motto. There were easier ways but they weren’t his and they never had been.

 Some two hours later a barbed wire fence appeared and a farmer’s track and half a mile beyond that he saw traffic moving on the road. He was delighted when he reached the tarmac but by this time he was on his chin straps, his mouth hung open and he knew he had to walk some distance back down the road to his car. He had long since sought the safety of his head torch. He was not hungry but he forced some trail mix down his throat, he was not thirsty but forced some water.  The muscles in his legs quivered like jelly. There were sore bits forming on his shoulders and waist where his pack was starting to take its revenge. He stumbled on and forwards. The road was an eternity but suddenly he turned a corner and there was his car.

He had at least prepared a bit for the wet. He rummaged and found a pair of dry socks and some shoes. Comforted he managed to fold his stiff body behind the wheel in the driver’s seat.  As he drove the 5 miles to the nearest village, he suddenly felt ravenously hungry. He could not believe when in the centre of the village he saw the welcome of a ‘Fish ‘n Chip’ shop and saw that it was open. Pie, chips, fish, mushy peas, lashings of salt and vinegar and he was sat in his car outside the shop and tucking in.  He had rolled up his chip papers, was walking back to the chippy by way of the rubbish bin, when it came upon him again. Quickly he was back inside and ordering the same.  Finally his hunger was sated. He drove back to his hostel. He showered and changed and vowed not to lie on the bed but to head down to the local public bar for a couple of beers.

After the first gulp of his pint, he sat back and surveyed the scene and, in the process, surveyed himself.  There was a calm that settled over him.  There was a smile that he knew was playing about his lips. There was a soreness to his body, a stiff muscle here, a forming blister there, an ache in places where there should have been no ache.

And yet, and yet, the black dog of the depression which had been his companion for days, was gone. His grumpy intolerance was no more. The irritating behaviours of people no longer irritated. Instead he saw in the faces of his fellow patrons and bar staff only a pleasant joie de vivre, peopled with ripples of laughter and friendly bonhomie. In those moments the world was a wonderful place, sweetness and light radiated. The beer worked its magic, he saw only good, thought only good, felt languid and lucky, part of a wondrous place and time. He saw only beneficence, only kindness, only personality in those who were having their weekly night out. He realised what a boon physical exhaustion is. There is the calm-contented soporific sublimity; angst is gone; social nervousness rests elsewhere; there is sweetness and light; conflict and condemnation have fled the coop.  In short, all the worst elements of his inner being had left on the wings of physical exhaustion, excessive exertion. Not only did he slip gently into rest but was accompanied on the journey by peace. There was mellifluous milk where there had been putrid poison, kindness where there was anger; a current of altruism washing  away selfishness and vindictiveness. The bitter hole, the empty shell,  had become a better whole.

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Dear Reader, I have read much about how the motion of walking can bring us towards the solution of a problem. Not for nothing did monasteries have cloisters around which the monks could stroll. Nor should it be a surprise that the Australian Aboriginals go ‘walkabout’.

“We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”    T.S.Eliot

Sadly it is too late for the autocrats, tyrants and dictators of this world to take these solitary walks. Had they done so when they were younger they might have walked the badness right out of themselves, they might have been able to look at their fellow human beings with some humility, they might even have wanted the best for them.  Is it too much to hope that world can replace the balance of power with the power of balance? Dear Friends, I am an optimist in that I believe that life is cyclical, that events evolve as they revolve, that what was at the top drops to the bottom and vice versa. However,

“A frantic casting about is everybody’s lot, it’s the spirit of the time.”

                                                                                       ‘Dr. Zhivago’

                                                                                                        by Boris Pasternak.

In general, I believe, that most people know what good is.  They know when and what is right. Yes, Dear Reader, there are nuances and the occasional bout of unawareness. But if there is a duck and her babies crossing the road most people will slow down and allow them across. Nobody will ever admit that they are in a position of power other than to serve others. Like many of you I wish that Trump was nothing more than a bit of a torn plastic bag caught in a tree but, sadly, nasty pollutants tend to cling. I remember this wonderful piece of philosophy but I can’t remember where I heard it:-

“Where do you hide a tree? In a forest. How do you hide outrageous behaviour?  With outrageous behaviour”.

Looking at the news at the moment, nothing seems truer than that. The so called leaders of the world, a misnomer if ever there was one, are very good at offering quids with no pro  quos

The only relevance in my particular story here is that during the few, but wonderful, times in my life I have been pushed towards physical exhaustion, then the juices flowing through my body have made people and the world a much, much more beautiful place and, albeit temporarily, made me a better person.

‘Solvitur ambulando’  Diogenes.