Bringing it all back home

I was determined to walk 100 miles across England. So determined that I stood outside the Passport Agency at five in the morning. So determined that, for six months, I worked out my body with walking, jogging and weights so that I might withstand and have the stamina for hours and hours of walking in the rain and mud, up and down dale. So determined that I put everything else aside, allowed the world to stand still outside the walking space, and focused only on that.

I was determined in a way that let me know it was more than just the walk. It actually did not have to do with whether I could make it it or not. It had to do with something deeply emotional inside me. A culmination of self-alteration and reflection work these past four or five years or so.

  Yes, indeed. I was going to say goodbye.

All the way there, during the long days of walking, and in the nights as I fell into a deep, fitful, dream-filled sleep, I knew I was preparing to say goodbye.

These past few days back home in Philadelphia, walking and jogging on my treadmill, doing my daily house chores, writing, preparing for work, visiting friends, or going to movies, I sense a lightness of being, that has nothing to do with the physical 5 pounds I lost during the walk. Nor is it connected to not having the daypack on my back this past week.

It has to do with shedding baggage.

Bidding farewell to the past. I left behind, up in the hills by Hadrian's Wall, pain and anger that I held onto for so long. Just as, one day during the walk, a necklace of sentimental value to me, was lost in the hail storm - left behind in the little copse up there near the sky at the highest point of Hadrian's Wall - so too did I leave my past pain behind - in the wind, hail, and rain.

Ancient demons and nemeses shrunk down to a manageable size, and I realize now through the lightness: I no longer fear them. Their actions or in-sensitivities have no relevance for me any more. All of them have as vulnerable, complicated, complex, mysterious beings as me. Mostly they haven't the emotional space or energy to know what they are or are not doing. Their descriptions, labels, stories about me have nothing to do with who I am. I stopped trying to dispel their image of me or prove my worthiness.

On the train from Carlisle to London, I noted in my journal:

I am no longer connected. It is not that I need to disconnect. I am, already, dis-connected. Free. Beyond all that. It has taken place. I just don't care any more. The exclusion of me has been so complete that I am now, by choice, dis-connected. No need for major decisions or acts of re-action. It is done. I have, in fact, moved on. No need for big decisions, dramatic actions. It is done ... I came to say goodbye - but that, too, was done. In March. Between January and March. Six months after fifty seven and a half years of learning how I came to be who I am. Gathering strength, validation, knowledge, support along the way, growing and maturing, analyzing, redefining, self altering. A struggle, at times excruciatingly painful - just like the walk - full of moments of tremendous fear. But, at the end - a great and uplifting experience. One full of a feeling of achievement. Emancipation. Individuation. Discrimination between I and thou. My brain and heart is my own. Dis-connected. De-(a)ttaching. De-(a)ttached. It is done.

"And in the end, so much of it doesn't even matter," says the Meryl Streep character in Evening.

All week, for some reason, I have been thinking of the poem by:

e.e. cummings, i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Behind bars

Comments

[tamarika]

Thanks, Natalie. Yes. It was a bit sad for me about the necklace. But it was timely for me to lose it too - it helped me close another chapter in my sentimental life!

[Natalie]

Wonderful post and photo, tamar. You and your sister are both blessed with such fantastic hair, for one thing, and those smiles too. The way you describe your walk and its meaning for you is inspirational. Sorry you lost the necklace but I'm sure the ground where it now lies appreciates your gift. The beautiful lightness of being free.

[tamarika]

Jean,
I love the way you mention the "mud" in relation to learning about life. It is a wonderful metaphor for life, isn't it? Messy and exhausting. I appreciate so much your joy for me. Indeed, I am feeling much lighter - not euphoric - just lighter. Am not used to this feeling at all. Am trying to hold still and get to know it ...

Kay,
I wonder what you mean by similar ... the walk? or self reflection/self alteration?

[Kay Dennison]

I really admire what you're doing, Tamar! You're inspiring me to try to find a way to do something similar. I'll be watching for the next installment.

[Jean]

I was so moved by this, Tamar, and so happy for you.

Indeed, I think completing a physical challenge like a long-distance walk can serve the purpose you describe. Certainly I count my long walk half-way across Spain several years ago as one of my major life experiences, from which I came back altered in many ways - alterations that continue to have repercussions. Just walking, being so utterly with my body, I think I touched many places in myself that I was not normally aware of. It sounds as though this was the same for you.

I really must write about this, keep meaning to...

So happy, happy to read this... all that mud and exhaustion so very, wonderfully worthwhile. Not enough mud and physical exhaustion in our western urban lives, I think, so sometimes it's important to go and seek it out. I'm full of admiration.

Loving the photos too - I don't know this part of the country at all.