006. weaving exuberant streams

keep your promises, the sacred ones

Greetings [:

It has been close to 3 weeks since we set off from “hometown”. How do we measure time’s passing? It seems like the more we deviate from what our days used to look like, the deeper those days seem to be lodged into the shadowy corners of our memory cabinets. It does not feel like we are but a few weeks away, it feels like we have been on the road for a long time.

We’ve covered slightly over 460km, walking almost everyday, and taken breaks in 2 small towns so far. I’m writing to you from Quebec city where we’re currently taking another break for a few days. Old Quebec and its stone streets winding up and down on hills — very charming (:

Tomorrow we continue to head eastwards on foot, hoping to eventually arrive in Rimouski, Quebec sometime mid-June. We’ve connected with another couple who’s homesteading there and are looking forward to spending some time on their farm with them. It feels like there’s no better way to learn about the ecologies of a place and the lay of the land than to be in the company of people who are curious, experimental and respectful about land too. Before we get there, walking is one way of learning too.

On walking

J and I are both walkers, ie. we like to walk, and really don’t mind walking long distances. He’s walked alot more than I have though. The idea of walking first came about when we thought it’d be a good approach — a way of making the journey and arriving at a place. Especially when covid measures are changing so often and one never really knows when you might be stopped at some provincial border because some pandemic measures have been put in place overnight, walking and camping is our way of exercising agency. We have our legs, we have tents, and we also have some solar panels with us. I’m honestly very very pleased with that (:

We become easier to please and more easily contented when we do not expect much. Simple pleasures come in the form of drinking water at parks, the occasional portable toilet, the occasional river or lake access for washing (after days of wet tissuing and powder bathing). We allow convenient store coffees to humour us, cheering for sunny days when we trudge around with damp laundry.

We’re currently two-thirds into our journey and have a little more to go before we arrive. It is easy to forget sometimes, that things add up. You get closer to your destination by putting one foot in front of the other. It is easy to brush aside the simplest of lessons when it is processed intellectually. But when you allow the rubber to hit the road, literally and figuratively, day after day, it is unmistakable. Of course, walking could be a mere metaphor here. What I’m saying is, when you look closely, you will inevitably find traces of life building incrementally upon itself, always.

We started the walk on the train tracks, allowing the tracks to mark our way because it cuts through the cities. But we’ve since moved on from staying on or close to the tracks. They were helpful, but a pain to walk on after awhile. And eventually got boring. Variety is the spice of life, says Alan Watts. Since then, we’ve tried other kinds of road, big and small, choosing between asphalt, earth, grass, sand and the many in betweens.

Sometimes there is so much to say, but so little that needs to be said. We’ve met kind people who slowed down for a quick chat, offered rides, oatmeal cookies, greens from their garden, asked if we needed water. One offered their yard (with river acccess!) where we camped for the night — that came with a very good dinner spread, nicely plated too. We’ve also met very generous airbnb hosts during our breaks in the small towns. More than what we have received, what has been quite precious were the numerous opportunities for us to share openly in these conversations what is important to us in our lives, where we are, and where we are headed. And to find resonance in these conversations have been very very uplifting.

Some days, we are kinda parched and physically worn. But the spirit, the spirit remains open. All of these — more than what we could have ever asked for.

Letting your life speak

I revisited Parker Palmer’s book some weeks ago - Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation:

“But if the self seeks not pathology but wholeness, as I believe it does, then the willful pursuit of vocation is an act of violence toward ourselves—violence in the name of a vision that, however lofty, is forced on the self from without rather than grown from within. True self, when violated, will always resist us, sometimes at great cost, holding our lives in check until we honor its truth.”

“Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about—quite apart from what I would like it to be about—or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.”

There is a longing to engage intimately with the world again, in some way or another. A desire to reconnect with communities I used to feel affinities with, individuals toiling away doing the good work. Yet I know that what lays ahead, near or far, is likely to take another form, tethered perhaps to another place, known by another name. I am no longer inclined towards social media, because sometimes they feel like receptacles that hold many bits of my past that now feels like a long time ago. Yet the times when I am there, I feel the tuggings — openings, beckonings — for me to do the work again.

The truth is, I am still seeking. Waiting to arrive, finally, at a place where my deep gladness meets the world’s deep need. It has been unbearable, the need to rush into articulating something for a world that is eager to place you, label you so it might understand you. I understand that. And I can see how convenient it is to participate in this call-and-response when one has namecards ready to be given away. When there are no namecards to dish out and no work profiles ready to be shared, it can be deeply uncomfortable.

There is a time for movement, and a time for stillness and consolidation. For now, getting up and walking for hours on end feels good. At the end of the day, the physical body is spent. The mind rests, and knows not to be kept awake, days on end, about questions — questions that it has no answers to, for now. Each new day asks only for my sincere attention, that I meet it with all my senses, that I offer all of it my keen eyes. This sacred promise, I will keep.

For now, this will do.

“See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace”

— Now and Then by Frederick Buechner.  

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Thank you for reading this, it means alot to me to know that there is someone on the receiving end; as much as I write for myself, I also write for you. If you know another kindred soul who may enjoy this, do spread the word. There is much weaving to be done. Till next time [: