walking along a portion of the north downs way, unexplainable experiences. i’ve never walked here before. otherwise known as the pilgrims way in reference to the fact that pilgrims have come here to walk along the route that st augustine (of canterbury) trod from lyons and rome to canterbury in the late 500s.

the sun is bright and high and a light breeze notes it’s now the first of september and i can feel the beginnings of the end of the year on the air. sunflowers point their faces southward toward the star, now starting to make its own pilgrimage south from this high latitude for the winter. a magpie hops in his tuxedo colours along the path ahead. everything is still in late summer heat, then leaves rustle. the dry chalk path is lined with a gentle layer of dust and small white stones not unlike many trails i’ve walked in the desert.

when did i start believing in signs? maybe i always did. doesn’t the modern world we’ve made teach us to put aside the things we feel but cannot see?

augustine was not the first person to walk here – trading trackways from folkestone to stonehenge followed these chalk hills as early as 1800 bce. after augustine died, canterbury became a pilgrimage site and several centuries later, this formed part of the epic road, the via francingena, along which christians travelled to and from the holy see.  later still, thomas becket became a figure of great veneration after he was slain in 1170 by four of henry II’s knights on the stairs to the crypt inside canterbury cathedral. canterbury’s status as a destination of pilgrimage was solidified, though the modern-day trackway that one walks through southeast england now was lost for at least two centuries and rediscovered in the 1970s.

the day wears on, the trail winds between the tunnelling green of holloways and out on chalk downs with views to yellowed hayfields already harvested and gone stalky for the autumn. i take my lunch on a bench at the lenham war memorial below a giant white cross carved into the hill.

later, past lenham, then harrietsham. more holloways, more fields, more hillsides, northwest forever. the path is straight and unwavering with few ups or downs and virtually no turns. just before hollingbourne, where i’d planned a refreshment at the 13th century coaching inn (and aptly named) the dirty habit, the path opens and the air stalls and becomes almost unbreathable. the whole world goes quiet.

i couldn’t say how long ago i dreamed of this exact spot on this exact path. several years, perhaps. the dream had lain dormant in my subconscious until the moment i arrived on the path and remembered it completely. in the dream, the sky had been covered in thick, grey cloud and the atmosphere was foreboding. nothing further happened in the dream, beyond my presence on that path. i stood for many minutes, staring at the ground ahead, trying to convince myself this deja vu was some trick of memory i’d already walked somewhere else, but the thick air remained and my soul knew for sure this path was the path of my dream.

what are dreams? the feelings of having been somewhere before. the sense you’ve met in some other lifetime. or that you can talk to someone on some other vibration. that your soul knows something your 3D body can’t quite define.

empaths, seers, mystics, those who can sense. we are told that this is nonsense. in different ages, these people have been cast away, hanged, tried by court, locked into prisons or mental asylums, burned at the stake, until science found some explanation for their feelings.

in the 17th century, galileo knew that the earth revolved around the sun. he could feel it. he could even observe it through his telescope, but he couldn’t prove it in a way that the ruling people of the day would make sense of. society blocked the idea as being unbiblical and galileo was put under house arrest, where he died.

the world is flat. the earth is the centre of the universe. there are no such things as other galaxies. the atom can’t be split. it is only ‘natural’ for humans to behave this way or that, until some other social norm replaces it, and we’ve completely lost track of the unseen world, our intuitions, what feels right. these days, most of us can’t even see the night sky, let alone work out what it means to follow our souls in the face of social onslaught.

let’s not be afraid of the magic, the unseeable, the things that move us which we cannot explain, the love we feel that seems contrary to what is acceptable. let’s recognise the paths we’ve walked in our dreams. let’s look for the signs and follow them. let’s love.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 
1 Corinthians 13: 12-13

slurp.

that sound.

there is nothing quite as unsettling as the sound of mud. boots struggling through it. slop slop slopping. a momentary stuckedness, then the unsuctioning of a boot bottom and, with it, the noise.

there is nothing that a desert flower detests more than mud. i can assure you, being one. i’m not saying that british people like mud, because i don’t think anyone likes mud apart from 11-year-old boys and black labs.

but desert people are raised in an odd, waterless world. rain is a joyous, almost spiritual experience. it doesn’t make mud; it just causes more dust to be raised. a water droplet hits off of dirt so dry that it literally can’t form mud, it just poofs up in a small whiff of dry dirt, then settles into the soil and vanishes as if it never existed.

i used to feel like the wicked witch when it rained. water? on my skin? what is this devilry? i didn’t learn to work an umbrella until i was 20 and moved to the east coast. when new mexico rains come, they fall hard and fast, then they move on. it is a giant, violent and all-encompassing monsoon that sprays the landscape for 15 minutes and doesn’t dally, leaving you to wonder if you dreamt it. this happens once an afternoon at about 2pm everyday during the months of july and august. after that, it is bleak blue sky and white sun that washes out everything within view, until winter winds and, maybe, an overnight snow that brings a pile of white fluff. it, like the dust, blows away in the wind, and does not create any mud.

slurp.

my right foot suctions down into poopy-looking goop, then rises too easily against the force of my leg, spraying the back of my calf with droplets of brown semi-liquid. i plant my left foot forward, but it slides unsteadily a short ways, and this process is repeated.

it rained most of yesterday and dawned today a bright, cold blue. my companion and i are somewhere west of wendover, trudging through the chilterns on a mad mission to get through the first hike of the year. all things considered, it’s a good day for it (in british, this means it is not actively raining right now), and given a choice, i’d battle mud over sweat any day.

it takes about eight hours after a new mexico rain for the crunchies to form. this is the term my sister and i as kids gave to the mudcracks that would form where fleeting puddles lingered for too short a time to be splashed through. it seemed like the rain went straight from droplets to crunchies, and that there were never puddles to be enjoyed. rather, enjoyment came in the gleeful stomping on the crunchies, which made such a delightful crispy noise.

long saturdays, we’d spend a full hour or two wandering up and down the length of our mile-long dirt driveway hoping to find a patch of crunchies after a monsoon. sometimes this would end in a fight as we battled for who would get the last toe over the final crack. who knew when it would rain again; you had to get the crunchies while you could.

walking in mud, for me, is overcoming a deep-seated and dark force. mud inspires in me a visceral dislike, such that i would do almost anything to avoid it, even despite the logical knowledge that i have on boots prepared for such an occasion.

this january walk through the chilterns is an exercise in mud-dodging. my companion picks her way up a small leafy slope while i spread my feet apart and hop from foot to foot straddling a slop of puddle. we face an epic slope, skiing our feet upwards and back in vain effort: moving a lot but not going anywhere fast.

then there is the constant struggle to dislodge the mud from the sides and bottoms of your boots as it tacks itself on, adding more and more weight to your already straining quadriceptic efforts. god, my knees fucking hurt.

in the desert, rain is a special thing. it freshens up a world that feels dead from the baking sun. it springs you to life, infusing the air with a coolness and the intoxicating scent of ozone and damp soil. the droplets hit your car windshield, and you roll the window down and stick your arm out to let the cool spray coat your hand, dried in an instant. and the rain stops before you can even enjoy it.

these moments are not unlike the fleeting hours of sunshine on a january day in britain. lauren and i break just before midday in whorley wood, too famished from mud-dodging to continue. there is a howling, icy wind that abates in a small clearing under a copse of giant elm trees. she ungloves a hand and tests a log for dampness, then another, finally settling on the ‘least wet’ one and we sit, unearthing sandwiches and crisps from the depths of our backpacks.

the wind carries on its way. our fingers go numb. clouds part for a moment. the sun hits our backs and suddenly it is warm like a summer. then all too quickly, the sun is gone again. like rain in the desert.

i did a lot of preparation for the 84-mile (it turned out to be 97 all-in) trek across england along hadrian’s wall national trail. one of them was to make a playlist, which i titled ‘england, coast-to-coast’. in fact, i never listened to it once during the whole nine-day excursion. but the songs looking back offer some oddly spiritual foresight. maybe i would learn something from them after i was done. here are some of the songs, and stories, from the journey.

day one

feel the weight of letting go
feel more lightness than you’ve ever known
you can’t see when light’s so strong
you can’t see when light is gone
(ride, ‘twisterella’)

rain. i am about five miles from my starting point: bowness-on-solway, the west coast of england. the weather is surprisingly tempestuous; water is blowing in off the choppy irish sea, and it’s hard to say if it’s rain or oceanwater. probably both. the road is flat and empty and feels endless and i am walking on pavement that, at the wrong time of day in the wrong season, would be flooded over by the firth’s tide. it nearly is now.

first one sock begins to dampen. right down the leg, straight in through my waterproofs. some minutes – or hours – later, i feel the first slosh. water has breached my boots. i am officially english-wet. my internal screams of agony – why are you here. just turn back. what are you doing. walking across a country? you are incapable of this. you are going to have blisters on day one. give up now. you don’t have to. – almost best me.

walking across a landmass is, above all, a meditation. it is a self-coaching session. a test in the mettle of your mind. over the next nine days, these self-flaggellatory comments will transform into zen mantras – a study in how to carry out mind over matter. but for now, a shivery pub lunch of vegetable soup and hot whisky, then steeling myself back into a sodden jacket and onwards, because if i give up on the first day, i will never forgive myself.

i don’t, and i am never gladder than to reach ‘cosmopolitan’ carlisle and be greeted by adele, a chatty former finance manager turned guesthouse owner who overshares about her marital problems. she hugs me in all my wet things and doesn’t fuss about muddy boots on her floor and, after drying out and having a beer and a meal, i think, i can do this. i am doing this. bring on tomorrow, into the wilds.

day two

over the turnstile, out of the traffic
there’s ways of living, it’s the way i’m living
i want a range life
if i could settle down, then i would settle down
(pavement, ‘range life’)

evening light and it seems like it will never darken over walton, or this bunkhouse garden. there are the northern lasts of the pennines. it’s clearing to sun and blue sky and the closer hills are green with ridges lined by dark trees. you can differentiate the pennine fells because they are purple and tan and grey. i am reminded of connemara.

day two is a walk out of civilisation, over the M6 motorway on foot – an arresting moment on a pedestrian bridge – and the first glimpses of the wildness of hadrian’s wall that is yet to come: green fields, the beginnings of the vallum (a trench the romans dug alongside the wall, which becomes my closest friend on this journey), the faraway buzzing of light aircraft from carlisle airport at about midday.

nighttime: a deserted bunkhouse with a needy, pushy cat and some sheep outside my window for company. i set an alarm for stargazing but, at this latitude, it’s past midnight before the sky gets truly inky and i snooze right through it, my body racked with the surprise of two full days on foot.

day three

have you ever wandered lonely through the woods
and everything feels just as it should
you’re part of life
you’re part of something good
if you’ve ever wandered lonely through the woods
(brandi carlile, ‘have you ever’)

the walk into gilsland, over the river irthing, curving south under limestone crags and lined by cool, early summer grass on its east bank. this is surely the best section of the walk: a path so close to the wall you could (but shouldn’t) brush it, fingering every fissure and chink as you go along.

at one in the morning, i descend a darkened stairwell, head still hazy from much beer and wine shared over dinner with a canadian couple and english brothers, all boomers, walking west opposite of me. the steep, narrow guesthouse stairs creak; have i woken them all? maybe not. i turn the latchkey to the giant front door and step out into the chill of the garden. a million tiny pinpricks of light through blackness form a dome over this magic place. i’m still in cumbria, but northumberland is on the other side of the road.

day four

i wanna walk and not run
i wanna skip and not fall
i wanna look at the horizon
and not see a building standing tall
i wanna be the only one for miles and miles
(dixie chicks, ‘cowboy take me away’)

crags, the start of them in greenhead. i am so worried about ascending the first one at walltown that i use the men’s room in the quarry picnic site and, upon realising my error (hmm, i think those are urinals.), simply shrug at a group of german walkers warming themselves with coffees at covered tables just adjacent to the loos. ‘been walking too long,’ and they chuckle knowingly. they must be on day five, headed the other way.

i have fallen in love with northumberland. it is a 1.5km walk from today’s guesthouse, which is perched along the wall’s edge on a bare bluff, to the only other building within view in any direction: the milecastle inn. the sun sets to the west, casting yellow, then orange and now the deepest of pink rays through my pint glass, nearly empty of a locally brewed best bitter. a late-running cyclist flies by in a hurry, probably on his way to once brewed for a more lively night’s stay, and as the sun reaches the horizon it’s time to stroll back to my bed. feet aren’t even tired, they are being good to me.

by the time i reach the b&b, pink is fading to purple and rich azure. i stop on a small stone bridge below the house and spend an uncountable number of minutes listening to the trickle of haltwhistle burn carving a ribbon out from under cawfields crag to the east. i will climb it, and many others, tomorrow.

day 5

i’m walking in your shoes
for just a mile or two
my heels are raw and torn
but i will dig them in for you
…i’m running out of faith, i’m tired of saving face, and where the hell is grace
(jonatha brooke, ‘walking’)

up, it goes straight up. you grab the first rock handhold and employ a tired knee to lift the left boot up onto a ledge. steady, and wonder why you overpacked. why do you need so much water. was that second protein bar a necessity? maybe not, if it means you might fall bass-ackwards off the back of a craggy face. it’s only the first of these today, there are at least 20 more ‘ups and downs’ to come. in places they are steep hikes, in places they are vertical climbs. take it easy, i say outloud to myself and the rocks. go slow, and go easy. you have all the time in the world. don’t fall. just go slow. one step, one rock, one climb at a time.

i tell the universe thank you for holding off the rain today. right now. and beg it to continue. i can’t do this if it’s slippery, i chide myself. i could have. but this first face is a watershed moment at the halfway point across england, on this journey’s most difficult place. i am not even to sycamore gap, that perfectly placed tree where kevin costner and morgan freeman jauntily scared away the sheriff of nottingham’s henchmen in robin hood: prince of thieves, and i’ve promised my friend joe i will send him a selfie from there. up, down, up again. stones, some of them slippery some steep, i am afraid of heights and why am i doing this again? have to get to housesteads and then i can rest. a huge ruin of a roman fort, a hastily scoffed tuna sandwich, nip into the portaloo and then i have to be on again, for i’m only halfway through today’s 26k trek and there are still crags to come, and rain. yes, rain.

sewingshields, one of two toppermosts on the whole walk. for me, the second and last one. there is a waymarker here, and the sudden realisation that i’ve climbed all the crags there are to climb, and that the tough work is done, brings a flood of tears. these turn to tears for a dear one lost, and three more kilometres have passed before my face is dried by the wind. just a measly 10 more kilometres to my bed, i think.

the path flattens out onto the treeless northumberland wilds. i am avoiding a group of walkers ahead and slow a bit. legs tire, feet begin to ache. there is nowhere to sit down, for leagues in any direction. the vallum carries on in a straight crevice, mile after mile. the elation of finishing the crags wanes more quickly than i’d expected. it’s here the positive voices surface to keep me going. encouraging words from friends, texts from family members, simple mantras from soul mates:

you got this kween!
you can do it, i got your back my girl.
i’m really proud of you sweetheart.
keep on walking!

i put this last one on repeat and meditate. kilometres pass. feet throb more and i think i can’t. i can. keep on walking! i begin saying it out loud, shouting it out into the nothingness, shouting it with cheer and a jaunty lift of the arms. a smile, it helps. up another hill. then, reaching brocolitia fort, i expend a few precious extra steps to enter the temple of mithras – now reduced to a collection of low stone ruins – and leave a few new pound coins. just in case.

days six, seven and eight

keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise
and i’ll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes
(caedmon’s call, ‘faith my eyes’)

by day six, i can do anything. walking has become as natural as breathing, as it should be for any human being. we are born to walk. we are given legs and we learn to use them before we can even communicate with other humans. we are born to walk. by day six, i am in my most natural state. strides are long. feet are in fine condition (a credit to my scarpa boots, and a careful routine of washing, moisturising and application of body glide and preventative compeed each morning). legs feel strong, soul feels stronger. i hope this walk never ends.

day six, i stay at the wonderful robin hood inn, a must for all walkers of the wall. it is the last point at which you feel you are walking the wall. from here, it is a simple two-day descent into urban newcastle, watching wilderness turn to farmland, and farmland to village, village to suburban riverside, industrial suburbia, and suddenly, you are counting six bridges crossing the river tyne and there are no more crags, just the pubs and mobile phone shops and hurried novocastrian pedestrians marching up dean street. where am i?

day nine

there’s forty acres, and redemption to be found
just along down the way
there is a place where no plow blade has turned the ground
and you will turn it over
cause out here hope remains
and all these rocks they are crying too
and this old land is crying out for you
(caedmon’s call, ’40 acres’)

i pack light. shed a small tear, then stuff my boots into the bottom of my large rucksack, which will be stowed in the hostel until the day’s walk is done. in a moment of planning madness, i’d arranged to catch a train back to london the same evening that my walk finished.

feet feel weird in trainers but slowly adjust to pavements as i stray out of central newcastle early and into the eastern suburbs. pound shops give way to endless blocks of modern red brick houses, then dual carriageways banked by greenery, and then a glimpse of water and some bobbing boats. i duck through a council estate and past an actual coronation street, then down to the shields ferry. this seven-minute boat ride will be the only form of non-foot transport i take on the whole 97-mile trek, and so close to the finish!

out of the boat, my heart is starting to race. i have to walk down south shields’ high street first, past mcdonalds and more pound shops and pubs with midday punters drinking tall, bubbling pints of lager. i can’t go fast enough, but i’m worried about the end.

then there’s the sea. i want to finish on a proper sand beach. pound, pound, pound…my heart is matching my footsteps for the first time since bowness. i stop at a bench and wrench off trainers in haste, tossing them into the daypack in favour of sandals, and finally, here is sandhaven beach. i can’t get up the dune fast enough and the tears are stinging at my eyes making me lose my way. toss the bag down, toss the sandals off.

the north sea water is freezing in may and feels blissful on my tired feet. i stay for awhile, because the sun is high. savouring the last few minutes of solitude, and the view out into the nothing of shimmering waters.

when i get on the newcastle metro, and then the virgin train to london, life will not feel real. probably ever again.

the saturday gone, i embarked on my first solo stroll across the english countryside. previous jaunts have always involved a companion, which is of course a wondrous way to enjoy the british landscape. but mental preparation is surely as important as muscle-building when doing something like walking across an entire country, and so solo excursions were happily added to my repertoire.

the south downs. what a wonderful name for this chain of low chalk hills that lumber some 260 miles across southern england. this country has a marvellous system of well-signposted paths that cross it in just about every direction. i was to walk a very small portion of the 100-mile south downs way that day. a short 40-minute train southward from home dropped me off in lewes (which is pronounced like lewis) – better known for its bonfire night extravaganza where effigies of famous and infamous politicians (and other things) are set aflame in a blazing procession.

the trail first weaves through the village, a pretty town full of red brick houses and pubs. but winds quickly out after crossing the A27 on a high bridge that vibrates in the wind. here, i found myself atop a glorious hillock heading in the direction of a giant escarpment, with only lazy cows for company.

as part of my experiment in mental fortitude, i left my headphones in the side pocket of my daypack. it was quiet. a bird swooped overhead and a low breeze whistled through a rotten fencepost. the soles of my boots crunched on hard mud covered over in a layer of ice from last night’s freeze. a sleetish mist hung in the low dips of the hills; i was above it.

the path drops here down into the hamlet of kingston, where all of the homes have names like deeping and roseway. old orchard. highdown. a small pasture contains a miniature horse with a giant, untamed forelock wearing a tiny winter rug. and the escarpment looms.

the path splits and you veer left, scampering up a jagged car-wide track to the top of the escarpment, where you join the south downs way. and then you are above everything, on a bare ridge, with views of white chalk cliffs to the north and undulating green to the south. forecasted clouds began to burn off, a warming winter sun appeared in front of me and soon i had stripped off all but the thinnest of layers.

i met a few other walkers – a couple with a half-wet retriever, a pair of men in big leather boots, middle aged trail runners, a solo woman heading the opposite way with whom i exchanged a knowing glance whilst munching on a segment of orange.

but for the most part, i was mercifully alone for a lot of the day. a stop for lunch at the abergavenny arms in the village of rodmell yielded a seat on a picnic table in the sun and a pint of local ale to accompany my tesco meal deal.

the afternoon was largely more of the same, but an excursion through a mudded out farmyard proffered the most important walkers’ lesson of the day. sidestepping one pool of brown sludge, i stepped onto what i thought was firm ground and landed ankle deep with both feet splashing in a cesspool of shitey bogwater. my scarpa boots were champs and feet stayed dry as dust, but lesson for this desert rat learned: always test the mud’s depth before stepping into it.

fifteen kilometres and change later, the walk climbs down and up again through the village of telscombe (home to the unassumingly beautiful, 13th century saint laurence church), before reaching a final high just north of saltdean. crossing a field disturbingly full of beady-eyed sheep, i was so distracted by not incurring their wrath that i was astounded when i realised that the ethereal shimmer off to my left was, in fact, the english channel.

i walked until i couldn’t walk anymore: all the way down to the shore, marching in giant, awkward strides through deep mounds of loose pebbles on saltdean beach and letting a thin rush of seafoam stream under my boots where the water met the land. it was a curious moment, reaching the ocean and having nowhere further to go. a reminder that every journey must have its end, and that, too, can be beautiful.