Pilgrimage Pt.19.

-

Pilgrimage Pt.19.

Nick asked 'are you not sick of walking?' that is a hard question to answer. No not really. Somedays it's more of a challenge to my knees and calfs, but on the whole arriving in the place you're going to stay for the night is very rewarding. I feel I can achieve the totality of this Camino in a variety of modes. Today I wish to stay and be alone so I said goodbyes to all the guys/gals I have met since the 21st. Our paths may cross again on the Way; I am sure. Like the Célé our paths are shaped by the mysteries of the cosmos; moving ever onwards to where? If we see each other not we will be seen in our memories.

I am pausing a day once more. Two solid days of walking. I confess I don't know how to slow my method of ambulant. So I do the distance too fast and my body shudders as it alters to the new flow!

The good vibes flow into me from prefecture Lot. Figeac is sending me by the bus to Cahors and camping for a few days until Saturday(5€ per night). I will do circular walks to see Cahors. Visit a vineyard perhaps? I am totally changed by this city and the expectations of Cahors.

The hardest part physically and mentally was the Aubrac; I could not know the Massif Central would quite so uniquely challenging. My mental image of France was formed from my two visits separated by two decades of youth verses maturity. Firstly in 1984 when I was twelve and never looked beyond my feet in case I was seen looking further than my peers would allow. Secondly in 2000 for French Life where I spent months erecting tents on badly leveled plots and cleaning rusty static caravans in the deluge of spring; with no help from any quarter including the cowboy employers. Neither showed me the external France; those experiences were English: misplaced and misaligned to the sun.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

France is ... a powerful antidepressant

-
I have to resuscitate a dying sense of spirit and enthusiasm into my present as I have become detached from the real joys of my life. No reading, no writing; no contemplation. Even now I am tempted to throw down the device and forget it, but why - because it's a dead end... Surely I can stay here a little longer until something infinite moves within and without? *** As I sit on Ruby's sofa/bed and listen to the sounds of spring, with the gentle murmuring of the pond at the bottom of the garden and the distant hum of the A1(M) I am aware of the distance growing between what I truly love and what I am become; in despair. Oh the alcohol fuelled me. The forgetful me. The desperately lonely me. The one I've cordoned off for the world to see. Ruby is happy with me, Lola is happy with me but I am unhappy with me simple as I am - Mother Nature's son: tranquil and unimpeded by mental noise... Knowing the truth will set me free, but being forever unable to accept it entirely. It...
Read more

An Essay.

-
Introduction. My name is Pilgrim. I walk through this life much as I walk through my allotment – a space I often describe as disorganized, yet to me, it feels profoundly holistic. I don't fear wasp stings; I stride through nettles and thistles and brambles, finding a curious interest in the cut skin, a quiet control over the bleeding. I have no fear of the dark or the unseen. What truly disturbs me is the chatter, the small talk that ripples through existence, obscuring the profound truths unfolding before our very eyes. I prefer chaos to order, perhaps because the imposed order I witness around me feels so deeply, fundamentally false. I literally eat things along the path, unbothered by what others might deem unsafe, for my perceptions lie far beyond the superficial. I’ve come to see this world as a grand, unsettling performance, a "game" played at the highest echelons, designed to "manage the populace from cradle to grave." It's not a conspiracy in the nea...
Read more

You and I.

-
Are we joined, you and I? When I sit squished up, alongside thee, It seems we are: Dog and boy Man and mutt. A symbiosis between homo and canid, A combination of smells, swells and warmth, which is rarely malignant. What a lucky man I've been, knowing  She's going to rest assured and easy, These last many years, as we both Age gracefully and greying towards separation; where the winds blow us  Disparate, sometimes warm and often Cold, back to the single I; alas! No more the we. She of a gray face, And I an ashen shadow, But always brighter  Than a swarm of photons, Alighting a while, Out of their cosmic array...
Read more