Pilgrimage: The day before: Southwark, London
You can prepare all you like, but at some point, you have to leave.
This is my journal entry for the day before my first pilgrimage.
Bath, England — 15 October 2020
The day before starting the Pilgrims’ Way
I wake before dawn as the wind howls outside. The tail end of a storm lashes the trees on the ridge line outside my window, like the sound of the ocean roaring onto a distant shore.
As the sun rises and the storm passes, clouds scud across the pale blue sky over the valley. I want to rise and fly with them. I want to be out there on the path, pack on my back, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Today I will escape these four walls.
* * *
I walk out the door into a crisp autumn morning and the sun is a blessing as I head down the hill into town to get the train to London. I’m careful on the steep path, wary of the slippery leaves by the community garden as the wind whips more from the trees, whirling around me in shades of orange and brown.
I should probably use my walking poles on the uneven ground, but this is still central Bath and I would look like an idiot. I’m already out of place in this suburb with my walking gear and backpack. It’s a relief because I’m tired of fitting in, being quiet, laying low, staying inside.
The solid weight of my pack sits tight around my hips and I feel a quickening within as I lengthen my stride. I’m only leaving for a week, but it feels every bit as exciting as when I left the UK for Perth, Australia, back in the year 2000. My pack then contained everything I owned and leaving was exquisite freedom. I didn’t know it as I walked away back then, but I had started a new life and it would be eleven years before I moved back to the UK.
Setting off on a journey can have unexpected consequences that shape the path of our lives. I may have a destination in mind for this pilgrimage, but I hope it might also give me back the freedom I desperately need once more.
Back then, I left nothing behind. I was twenty-five and single, with only a little money in the bank. I gave up my job, and I had no responsibilities at all.
Today, I’m walking away from my husband, my best friend, who I will text within the hour and return to in a week. I’m happy in my marriage and I have work that I love. Bath is my home and I don’t want to start a whole new life. What I need is to move across the face of the world and feel alive again.
Shut up inside for so much of this pandemic year, I’ve experienced too much of the world through a screen and the skewed lens of the media has contorted my mind into spiralling catastrophe. My world has shrunk. The walls press in and domestic routine has atrophied my creative soul. I need to get out before what is already fragile splinters and cracks beyond repair.
* * *
The train is almost empty, but even so, I adjust my mask, pulling it tighter as the reminder to social distance keeps travellers in their seats.
In London, the Underground is deserted as I head for Southwark. There are no tourists, no flights, no travel. Most people are working from home if they can. Shops and restaurants are closed or have severe restrictions. Much of the world is sheltering in place and part of me feels I should be, too.
I walk out of the station and the few people on the street hurry past, mostly masked, a palpable fear in the air. No one meets your eyes in London at normal times, but now, the avoidance of direct gaze feels furtive and accusatory, as if by merely breathing, I am a transgressor.
The city is empty, almost apocalyptic. I have never seen the capital so quiet. London moves to Level 2 tomorrow, with no mixing of households indoors. I can only hope we won’t have another complete lockdown, but I fear the bars of the cage will slam shut once more before long.
I have spent the pandemic so far lying low, trying not to be a burden. If I can avoid the virus and stay healthy, then precious resources can be spent on those who need it. But I can’t lie low any longer. I need to get out into the world before the bitter weather sets in and winter traps us inside for months.
I walk past Borough Market, usually bustling with the smells of hog roast and mulled cider, while the calls of market vendors selling wild mushrooms or artisan sourdough echo up to the rafters. But the pleasure of a slow walk through the market, stopping to sample delicious treats, is gone. The stalls are shuttered; the pubs are empty, and the only smell is antiseptic hand sanitiser.
No touch. No taste. No smell.
The world has lost its senses.
Something is dying, or perhaps has already died here. London will always be reborn, but now is the season of death.
I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the need to go home to Jonathan and be safe together in our home — or die together, if that is what must come. Everything feels so uncertain and the reality of being here hits me.
What if I’ve made a terrible mistake coming away alone?
What if I pay too high a price for my desperate need for freedom?
I stop myself from heading back into the Underground and fleeing the city. I check into the hotel, take off my pack, and review the maps I have carefully prepared for my route each day. It helps to see that I’m not too far from home. I can get back to Bath in a few hours if I need to, but I have to go on this journey.
I have been enmeshed with Jonathan in our house for months and our routine has become embedded after so long at home. We have worn grooves in our shared life that feel happily familiar but could easily turn into ruts that deepen so much I can’t climb out. We are closer than ever and it’s hard to stretch the bonds of our marriage when they are so tight. But I need to push my boundaries once again or I will become just one half of a whole, and that is not what we intended our marriage to be.
In our wedding ceremony back in 2008, we included a verse from the poet Kahlil Gibran. We vowed we would “stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” This pandemic time has entwined our roots and our branches, and I don’t know if I can stand apart any longer. I need to prove that I can.
There are a few hours left of the day, so I visit Southwark Cathedral, a place of worship for over a thousand years, and the starting point of the Pilgrims’ Way.
A woman kneels in a pew praying quietly and candles flicker in front of an altar. I want to buy a pilgrim passport but the cathedral shop is closed. I want to find someone to give me a pilgrim’s blessing, but there is no one to ask.
I light a candle and think of my family. I send them love and ask a God I don’t believe in to keep them safe from this plague. There is something about collective faith that sinks into ancient stones such as these, and perhaps the candle smoke can pass more easily through the veil here, carrying my words to the divine. It might be a meaningless gesture, but it calms me as I stand alone in this cold place surrounded by a thousand years of death.
The tombs of the wealthy lie here, but the shadow of this extravagant faith is a few streets away at Crossbones Graveyard. While the rich have ornate tombs in the cathedral, the outcast dead lie in unmarked graves on unconsecrated land. Dirty ribbons tied to the metal gates mark their passing alongside plastic Madonna figures and memorial signs made from cheap plywood with handwritten felt-tip hearts.
As I walk back to the hotel, I notice graffiti art on a brick wall. A skull wears a blue surgical mask, death trying to hold back death.
I can’t control what’s happening in the world. But I can put one foot in front of the other and walk my pilgrimage. Perhaps that is enough to anchor me in the dark days ahead.
* * *
Resources:
• Southwark (pronounced Suth-uk) is a special place for me and forms the backdrop to my Brooke and Daniel crime thrillers: Desecration, Delirium, and Deviance — www.jfpenn.com/brookeanddaniel
• I’ve also written articles and shared photos about the area on my Books and Travel site. Southwark Cathedral, London — www.booksandtravel.page/southwark-cathedral
• Crossbones Graveyard, London — www.booksandtravel.page/crossbones
• Walk the South Bank of the Thames from Tower Bridge to Westminster, London — www.booksandtravel.page/walk-south-bank
• London: A Personal History. A solo episode of my Books and Travel Podcast with pictures and transcript if you prefer to read — www.booksandtravel.page/london-a-personal-history
