Taking one step, one breath, one moment along our path... whether walking through Spain, a pandemic or grief.

Recently, I have become an armchair traveller.  The travel books I am reading remind me of trips unaffected by coronavirus.  While it remains difficult to consider venturing abroad at the moment, I can imagine varied landscapes of olive-groves and mountain villages.  During the last two years, I have been fortunate to spend a few months in Spain.  It has been a very necessary tonic to help recover from a challenging patch of life marred by multiple bereavements, redundancy and my own health struggle.  I had been knocked sideways and was unsure how to get up again, let alone recover fully.  Would I feel crumpled and sore for ever?  All I knew was that I was craving sunshine and quiet to help heal and thankfully Spain was providing this in abundance.

Life since coronavirus emerged has obviously been different.  I initially felt the loss of my precious trips to Spain that helped my soul feel alive again.  So now, instead of actually packing my suitcase, I am reading travelogues about walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.  This has become a well known long-distance footpath, even a pilgrimage for some.  I have not walked it myself but now and then wonder about doing something like this?  An escape, a challenge and a dose of healing rolled into one.  Reading about other people's losses and journeys has helped to not feel so alone on this long road of healing.

The path most often walked on the Camino is a staggering 800km, running from a small town in France, over the Pyrenees into Spain and finishing in Santiago de Compostela.  Something about the familiarity of walking each day for six weeks surrounded by raw, dramatic scenery appeals.  As I read, I am filled with awe at the sheer energy and stamina that is needed each day.  Within the first week of the trail, you are traversing the steep, rocky paths of the Pyrenees often in lashing rain.  Some guidebooks warn that this initial section, with its steep inclines and rugged descents, is the most physically challenging of the whole path.

Maybe I can use the metaphor of walking this long-distance path to help understand our route through a pandemic.  Like the walkers, there is an amount of stamina required to get through week after week of uncertainty.  We have painfully and tragically climbed the steep peak of the pandemic curve and are a good way in walking down the other side.  This in itself has used up a lot of our energy supplies but a long stretch ahead remains.  Now we have reached what reminds me of the section of the walk called the Meseta.

The Meseta is known as the mentally toughest part of the 800km walk which has surprised me until now.  The Meseta is the name given to the large and expansive flat plains of central Spain (translated as plateau).  The path continues for 220 km through this flat, empty and tediously similar landscape.  It has such a difficult reputation that some walkers even skip out this section and take the bus!  Why on earth wouldn't they enjoy a break from all the difficult mountain paths?  I imagined it would feel amazing to stride out each day on an unchanging path without needing maps or raincoats.

But now I get it, flat and empty landscapes without any break from the scorching sunshine or change in scenery is tough going.  No pretty villages to look forward to or delicious walker's suppers prepared for you at a mountain lodge.  Isolated and alone with another day of the same ahead is hard.  And especially challenging when you are already tired from weeks of walking with raw blisters and aching muscles.

As we enter our "pandemic meseta" I am not struggling with blisters but with the sameness of my life that is still mostly based at home.  I haven't left our little seaside town since March except for a few inland walks nearby.  Although I am grateful to live somewhere with wide open space around me,  I am starting to crave a glimpse of somewhere different.  I am tired of thinking about what to cook yet again that is interesting, healthy and using what we have in our kitchen.  None of it is difficult but it requires a mindset of keeping going and finding pleasurable moments in what feels like a similar landscape week after week.

This "meseta" section also reminds me of the grief journey I have been through.  The initial peaks
and troughs of shock and emotional pain at the start were tough, especially when one bereavement became three followed by a series of smaller ones.  But at least it was obvious that I needed support and extra care for this emotional section.  And then it all went quiet, the phone stopped ringing and people stopped asking.  Within a few months it felt like the grief had been forgotten and I should be "back to normal".  But of course the grief hadn't gone and I had only just begun to go through the healing needed.  In that "meseta" phase, I felt alone yet kept showing the world I was coping and fine.

In our "pandemic meseta", it is beginning to remind me of that forgotten and alone phase of grief.  Suddenly we are being encouraged to go shopping and have barbecues on beaches while I am still deeply aware of all the bereaved families and those in hospital with coronavirus.  We still have a thousand new cases each day in the UK.  Has this become normal, something we tune out from or pretend is no longer an issue?  Are we supposed to shrug off the hundreds of people still dying in this country from Covid-19 each week?  When I hear regular reports of care homes with coronavirus, I continue to think of my father who is my last remaining older relative.  I don't know how to just get back to normal when this is all simmering in the background. 

But if I approach this phase of the pandemic as I would a long distance footpath, the way is clearer.  Each day, I just have to take the steps needed and follow the path ahead.  The best thing about walking is its constant reminder to stay in the present moment and not plan weeks or months ahead.  When it is scorching hot, I will need to rest in some shade a little more than usual.  If my body is feeling tired or my back is sore, I need to take things a bit slower than I might wish to.  And why rush?  There is no where else to be except exactly here, where I am.  This is my life right now, why would I want to try and be anywhere else?  If the last few years have taught me anything, sometimes we can't control the exact plan of our lives.  None of us would have chosen to live through a pandemic.   But we can do everything possible to take care of ourselves and to enjoy the moments that are with us.  And yes, it is going to feel hard at times, we are on a long path.  But we can do it, just one more step, one breath...

"No matter how long your journey appears to be, there is never more than this: one step, one breath, one moment... Now."    Eckhart Tolle.