A new Year, a new perspective…
4 comments January 30th, 2008
This has been the longest break my blog has ever had. I guess that I was holding on so tight last year, that I just needed to give myself a break; and I am happy to say that having done so, it feels like a whole new world out there.
Firstly, to those who knew him – Frank Walshe, our Dad, died on the 10th of January, at home in Cornwall. He lived well and inspired us all in his own way, and we will miss him.
I have been back in Australia for a while now after spending a couple of months in the UK. It was wonderful to spend time with Dad and his wife Ela, and Ela’s daughter Tanya, before he passed away, and I was glad I could go. It was also an enormous joy to be with my London mates again, and able to talk about the ups and downs the previous months had brought in terms of the walk, to people who understood it.
I spent a lot of time sleeping, getting fit, and weaning myself out of all the bad habits I had fallen into on my return from the walk, cutting back on the mad fits of mild hysteria and over-drinking and trying to get back to what it was that was important to me; and finding out where I wanted to go from here.
Unsuprisingly, I guess, although I confess it did come as something of a shock to me, I found that with a bit of rest, my enthusiasm for my walk and the desire to see this adventure through to the end, returned with a huge wallop. For the first time since I got back from the desert last time, I began looking at photographs with an eye to more than speaking engagements or articles; rather I just began viewing them with friends, talking about where I was and what was going on. I began to relive the journey and to fall in love with it again from outside, something I had found incredibly hard to do in the aftermath of the walk last year, plunged as I was into trying to talk about it, write about it, and get it back on the road. I desperately needed a rest from all of that and a chance to actually reflect on what the walk had really been – and, perhaps more importantly, to forgive myself for not having made it all the way across the desert in one hit.
This was a big one for me. No matter how many times friends or family, or indeed other expeditioners, told me that I had done everything I could, and that my only alternative had been to accept that Niger was impassable and return to Australia, I had found it extraordinarily difficult to accept either the reality of their words, or that I wasn’t somehow at fault for being forced to stop before I wanted to. I had struggled terribly with a gnawing sense of doubt, failure and inadequacy, and shed a bucket of tears in the middle of dark nights, fearing that my dream was finished and that it was in some way entirely down to my own inadequacies. I compared myself with one of my heroes, Michael Asher, who walked the same path (to this point in Niger) that I have, with his wife, Mariantonietta, twenty years ago. He was forced to a halt in the very same village that I was; and yet he managed to convince the authorities to let him continue, and went on to walk across war-torn Chad, into Sudan and finally to the Nile in Egypt, thus making the first European West to East crossing of the Sahara.
I wondered why I had failed where he succeeded; I felt that any honour or distinction my walk may have earned, was lost the second I had to leave my camels and take a plane out of there. No matter what the reasons, I couldn’t help but feel horrendously inadequate and depressed by the outcome of what had been such high hopes.
Asher wrote a book about his expedition – Impossible Journey. I read it years ago, before I had ever even left London. It seemed so otherworldly at the time to be almost like a moon landing; I understood nothing of what he had done, and the entire tale felt incredible and, indeed, impossible. I measured myself against this ex-SAS soldier and biographer of Thesiger, renowned author and expedition leader, and found myself horribly wanting. I doubted that I could ever even hope to emulate such a man, and I put the book away with forboding and doubt tumbling through my mind.
A couple of weeks ago, and just as I was feeling a new energy and vigour rush back into my mind and body, a new push for the walk starting in myself, my Aunt gave me another copy of the book and asked if I had read it. Full of trepidation, but figuring it was about time I faced my fears, I opened the book.
It was the best thing I could have done.
Far from depressing or humiliating me, Asher’s tale buoyed and encouraged me. Having virtually mirrored his route until this point, I could relate entirely to every description of place, guide, camel, landscape, and experience; I could feel every doubt and laugh ruefully at every cockup. I empathized with his concerns and laughed at his observations, and for the first time since I left Mauritania, I felt comforted by the knowledge that not only did someone else absolutely understand what I have been through – but also, and far, far more importantly for me, I felt the first stirrings of real pride and relief at my own accomplishment. Here was someone who I have long admired and respected, and yet when I read his book – he had fallen into so many of the same traps I did, had so many of the same problems I encountered.
Yes, I envy him terribly the fact that he was able to continue his journey and cross the desert in one hit. Far smarter than I, Asher and his wife travelled much further each day, riding their camels for about half of every day’s march. If I were to ever attempt another desert crossing I would do the same thing; but mine is a walk, and so, somewhat stubbornly, I stick to my promise of making every step from one side of the desert to another.
But the most important outcome for me was the feeling of beginning to actually respect my own journey, and, for the first time, to accept that it wasn’t my fault that I had to take a break; and also to discover that my will to complete the journey had returned with a vengeance, this time accompanied by a true enthusiasm for the remaining country.
This was an extremely vital development. I had been horribly aware, in the dark months after my return last year, that my true desire to continue had suffered a real setback. Deep down, far where I couldn’t speak about to anyone, I asked myself if I could really face going back; if I genuinely wanted to complete this walk at all. I thought of the bad guides and of starving camels, of tribal councils and corrupt officials, of machine guns and menacing intruders to my camp, or begging women and uncomprehending nomads. I thought of the prickles and exhaustion and just plain fear sometimes, and, perhaps far harder, of the intense loneliness and ache that comes from months of isolation within another culture. I felt deeply tired within, tired of fighting for sponsorship, of trying to get back there, or pushing and pushing, for years now, to make this dream a reality.
So it was sheer bliss to realize that having given myself a true rest – mental as well as physical; having spent hours doing yoga, and resting my mind, and concentrating on making my body well and my mind still, that suddenly, I had rediscovered my love for this walk again. Suddenly I could feel once again the immense excitement and sense of anticipation that I get looking out over that deserted, empty space, the infinite realm of possibility that almost chokes me with longing at the beginning of every walk, the urge to get into it, to get beyond that first vista, to find what the journey will bring, what inner and outer voyages of discovery I will make. I felt my mind open up once more, and deep inside I felt a resurgence of the determination that got me this far. I came back to Australia and I thought: Now. NOW I’m ready to go back.
It’s funny, but I think life just wouldn’t let me do it until I got to that place in my mind.
So now I am back and thoroughly into it. My book comes out in two months (!!!!) and I have been thrilled watching the cover come into life, and the final shape it is taking. Even though this book covers the European walk, which now seems so far away, it is with a massive sense of satisfaction that I watch it coming into being; as if finally, I have some tangible proof of my experience. Finally, my story, told the way I want to. I can’t wait to hold it in my hands, and for you all to read it!
I am booked to return to the desert on September the 1st. The situation in Niger is better, but not entirely resolved; but I am working on the basis that it will be. Somehow, I will find a way to continue my journey. It is just not finished for me, and now – I want it. Truly, and deep in my heart.
I want to leave you with some words I found my TS Eliot, in a book called “Four Quartets” that my Mum sent out to me whilst I was walking last time. They have been an inspiration and comfort to me:
In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
Happy New Year to you all.