This is my favourite day of the year, because over the next six months nights will become progresively shorter and the sun will take ever-higher arcs across our northern sky. I relish the return of light.
Since my last post, Fly and I enjoyed visiting a few Italian highlights: Rome, Cinque Terra, Firenze and Venice. Two weeks of touristing helped me step back into my non pilgrim life and gave me time to begin pondering some of the experiences the journey afforded.
Fly flew home from Milan while I took the train north to Paris, on to London, and then to Windsor for a visit with friends. Having walked for the better part of three months – during which the UK has seen three prime ministers and two monarchs – it seemed inconceivable that I could cover that distance in the space of thirteen hours.
The day after returning home, I jumped back into my Comox Valley life by attended a writing group meeting.
“Are you going to write a book about this walk?” one of my friends asked.
I’m not. However, my current project, Canterbury and Other Tails – Walking Ancient Trails, will host a Via Francigena chapter.
Between catching up with friends, and preparing for the Solstice and Christmas, I’m writing. As I sat down the first time after a four-month break, I wondered what would happen. So many authors have their writer’s block horror stories, and I thought it might be my turn because I was undecided about what angle to take. Where would I find the universal truths, would I be able to develop enough tension and conflict to encourage the reader to turn the pages.
Sitting at my laptop, I closed my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to re-enter the journey. As my fingers began typing, the dramas, joys and disappointments started revealing themselves across the screen. Although not a Yuletide story, perhaps this excerpt of a moment on the Road to Rome creates suitable reading for a long winter’s night:
Day Seventy. 1 November. Radicofani to Acquapendente
…
Despite having left the hostel in Radicofani in the dawn’s twilight, night falls before we reach Acquapendente. As is often the case near towns, the route brings us onto a busy road. This one is also narrow with frequent sharp bends. I don my headlamp, Atul and Antonella hold their phone flashlights. Approaching and passing vehicles alternately blind us or illuminate the road ahead. Atul and I keep anxious watch for the trail that will lead us away from the dangers of the road, avoid a long hairpin bend, and take us up into the walled town.
A break in the guardrail alerts us to a narrow path descending into a ravine. Casting our lights around we glimpse the trail marker, so pick our way down a steep slope then start along a forested trail. I sense the medieval town walls looming somewhere ahead and above, but our vision is restricted to tight bobbing circles of inadequate of light. Dense forest crowds the trail, obscuring any potential glimmer of starlight and cloaking us in near palatable darkness.
With a sudden squealing and crashing, an enormous boar erupts from the brush. Tusks gleaming, snout high, main bristled, the beast dashes across the trail just ahead of Atul and me. Gasping, we stop, each stepping closer to the other. Antonella, who has dropped behind, screams in terror. Rustles and grunts from the bush on both sides of the trail indicate the monster isn’t alone.
“Come on. Join us.” We yell to Antonella. “We have to stay together and make ourselves big and threatening.”
Antonella remains alone and vulnerable in the dark. “They are dangerous,” she insists. “We need to go back.”
“You need to join us. Now. We’re halfway through the woods. Whichever way we go – we must stay together. If we make big noises, we’ll scare them.” I have no idea what the correct protocol might be when encountering boars in the dark. But I have read enough to know that they can be unpredictable and ferocious. I understand her fear. I share it. So does Atul.
We encourage Antonella to close the gap between us. Once together, we continue, hearts pounding, senses scanning the bush. We shout, “Stay where you are. Do not come out,” to an unknown number of boars that continue to grunt and forage nearby.
Even though we’re weary from a thirty-two-kilometre day, when we reach a flight of stone steps leading up to a gate in the town wall, we stumble up into the light as fast as our legs will carry us. Feet firmly planted on the cobbled street, I turn and look back down into the dark where hunched shadows emerge from the forest. Now we are gone, the boars will spend the night digging up the path as they forage for roots, grubs and fallen acorns.
Later in a bright-lit restaurant, I notice boar meat on the menu and that is what I order for dinner.
***
In the faded light of a short winter’s day – the first day of winter – snow lies on the trees and ground, the woodstove keeps the unusual Arctic chill at bay, a Christmas pudding steams on the stove, and I wish you and yours the best for a peaceful and fulfilled year to come.
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