Constant Canterbury Part 1

I've struggled over the last few days. What shall I say about the walk? There's been some rain and lots of mud. There's been beautiful panoramas but little variance. I've met people I'd like to tell you about and perhaps I eventually will.

I am now fourteen days into the walk, more than 200 miles and a channel crossing under my belt. I've already been walking in France for four days. Nothing seemed to rise to the level of blog-worthiness until about six days ago, the day before we entered Canterbury. It wasn't something I could easily write about until now because I am dead tired at the end of the day and I needed some time to understand how I am feeling about things. But I am ready now. 

So I will start with Constant. Every long walk has ups and downs and not just topographic. You deal with it. Sometimes, however, one of those downs threatens the walk itself. So it was in 2012, two days before Leon on the Camino Frances. My blisters had gotten so bad that my boots would no longer fit. I had lost one toenail and another was half ripped off. I could not walk. I could not go on. I was devastated. 

In the hostel that night, I met a Frenchman of African origin. He was a tall, robust man in his mid-sixties looking like fifty. His name was Constant. We spoke for a long time about the Camino. About the experience.  About the lessons one takes away. Finally, Constant looked at me with great seriousness and calmness. "Gary," he said, "disappointment is also a lesson of the Camino."

That didn't save the Camino for me. What saved it was my raison d'être telling me not to come home, to find a hotel room with a bathtub, and to spend the next two days soaking my foot.

That did the trick. On the third day, I walked just five miles, on the next ten. By the fifth day I was doing a slow fifteen, and with the swelling of my foot abating and the second toenail off (surprisingly a lost toenail is much less a problem than one in the process of being lost), I was back on the Camino.

That conversation with Constant, though, came back to me when Patrick and I finally had to face the one thing that threatened to destroy the enjoyment of this trip, and I remembered to accept  disappointment as a lesson, something to be embraced. 

Lodging has been the bane of this hike. The North Downs Way passes through or near few towns with any lodging. Where rooms exist they have been booked. I've spent hours every evening on the internet and the phone attempting to find rooms even if it meant taking a train to a bigger town or city and training back to our stopping point to pick the walk up where we left off. I've been so stressed that the enjoyment and benefits of the day's walks seemed to have evaporated. Everything was out of balance.

We were due to arrive in Canterbury on Saturday. On Thursday we figured we ought to find a place there and for an interim location the night before. No suitable accommodations were available. We'd have to spend hours at the task. I could not deal with it another time.

Finally, I offered the only solution that might bring things back in balance: train ahead by one day's distance and walk to Canterbury from that point, arriving on Friday when lodging was available. 

I was sorely disappointed not to walk the entire distance between Winchester and Canterbury, though we'd still be doing 144 of the 160 miles. Most of you will say this is a minor blip, something that will be lost in the context of a 1,400 mile walk. But for me, having set my sights on walking the entire distance, this was a big disappointment. 

For those who have not felt disappointment of this sort, I must tell you it is not an emotional thing. It is deeply physical. You feel it in the pit of your stomach or high up in your chest. It hurts. It pervades your thoughts. Everything which would otherwise be an excitement is degraded by the fact of having had to give up on an important part of the achievement. I know several good friends who would counsel that this is not failure, but it sure feels like it to me. It's how I am put together. 

This was the correct decision. It eliminated the stress but I still had to deal with the disappointment. Pilgrimage of this sort, though, is a long journey and opportunities to balance the disappointment do arise. Something always seems to come along which pays you back many fold.

And so it did as I arrived in Canterbury.

Comments welcome at: garyontheway@gmail.com