This Too Shall Pass. Thoughts From The Pilgrims’ Way With J.F. Penn

“Man’s real home is not a house, but the Road, and that life itself is a journey to be walked on foot.” Bruce Chatwin In late October 2020, I walked the Pilgrims’ Way from Southwark Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, 182 km/113 miles on foot, alone, carrying my own gear… during a global pandemic. A Roman road 2000 years ago, the route became popular for pilgrims after the martyrdom of St Thomas a Becket on 29 December 1170 at the hands of four knights of King Henry II. In literature, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer follows a cast of colorful pilgrims on the way, and T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral dramatically captures the archbishop’s bloody end. In this episode, published on the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom, I’ll share the personal side of my journey. I’ve written separately about the practical side of the pilgrimage with day by day photos here. * Fernweh. Longing for escape. * Why pilgrimage? * Transience and permanence. Questions I asked myself on the way. * “Stranger, pass by that which you do not love.” * Pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone and tackling fear * Give it time to settle. The lessons of pilgrimage may not be immediately obvious. * The next step My book, Pilgrimage, Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways, featuring the Pilgrims’ Way is out now. Longing for escape The word ‘wanderlust’ means ‘a strong desire to travel,’ and I certainly have that! In 1983, when I was 8, my mum took us to live in Malawi, Africa (which I talked about in episode 1) and since then, travel has played an important part in my life. I presume it does for you, too, since you are listening to this! The last time I traveled was in February 2020 when Jonathan and I had a few days in Bilbao and San Sebastian, crushed into tiny pintxos bars sampling the local cuisine, wandering freely around the cities, walking through the Guggenheim with no thought of a mask. It seems like a different world now and my wanderlust has shifted into fernweh, a German word meaning ‘a longing for far off places.’ That longing goes deep and this time of enforced stillness intensified it so much that, at times, it spilled over into frustration and anger — at the world, at the virus, at myself, for not being able to quiet the need to get away. I am safe and well and loved and busy, and able to work from home. I acknowledge my privilege and yet some days, I felt… still feel… like a bird banging its wings against the bars of a cage. I’m not an angry person, but when anger and frustration bubble up every day, I know I have to get moving. Walking every day has helped during the pandemic, but I have circled the local routes over and over, day after day, as the seasons changed. During the summer, it seemed that perhaps there might be hope for an end and we had some glorious days in the sun — but then it became clear that the winter would be long and dark and it would be spring again before the beginning of the end of the pandemic. I needed a long walk for my mental health before the winter set in, and after weighing the risks,