pocket-full-of-seaglass

-???-

Cadabra! Hello again :] I figured I’d stick with the trying new things,,, thing, and greet you at the start. Who knows, maybe it’ll stick (or not)! Anyway, this one had an alternative/working title for a while of ‘Incredibly Privileged Petulant Child Cries About Nothing (Again)’, so just,, have fun!

It didn’t work, if you were wondering. The whole go-to-sleep-early thing. I woke up at 6.15am to a cold tent that had flattened against the sides when the wind knocked the pegs from the rocky ground, leaving icy cold water dripping down all over me – all things considered, it wasn’t my favourite morning so far. I was feeling generally exhausted, the kind where no matter how much (or little) you sleep, your eyes are still so heavy and all your emotions feel thick and muggy. Helpfully, it also means I don’t want to move a muscle.

But I do – I could have been persuaded not to if I was in a campsite where I could just pay for an extra night, but by the track all day in a neon tent? Not going to happen. Besides, today is a bit of a miserable day to have free; it’s dark and misty and cold – I’d just work my way into more of a funk. So I get up, tug on my clothes, damp as always, get my shit together and am on the road by 8.00am. I don’t see anyone else for almost the entire hour into Cahors – bar the man on a freezing morning walk with his dog. Bit of a crazy decision, but hey, who am I to judge!!

A few minutes in, I go to change the song and remember my data has once again Died Brutally. This SIM card was going to be the death of me, but thank fuck it’d only have to wait an hour. I ignored it, skipping instead to the song that had gotten stuck in my head – Misty Mountains, banger – and man I love Lord of the Rings I’ll have to reread it when I get back. On that vein, I cannot believe I didn’t bring a book. I mean, I can, it’s so much extra weight and they’re expensive and I go through them too fast for it to make sense to carry but god what I would not do to have something other than writing to do at night. I mean, I love it, but early mornings and late nights are when I do most of it, and it’s almost always till my fingers are white and purple with cold which isn’t quite ideal.

No time to dwell though; there are roofs peeking through the mist :]

-Cahors-

My first impression of Cahors was that it was too big. Still not a fan of the cities – even if they weren’t as convenient as the tiny hubs, I was missing the little spots of the Gebennensis. Cities were too bright, too loud. Twelve year old me is pissed.

Anyway, the descent down goes great, my right knee managing fine and my left hip clicking every time any weight gets put on it (even though it doesn’t hurt??) and just in general feeling like a bag of bones loosely contained in skin. But as I walk down, I realise two things; (1) the campsite looks like it’s in a really pretty spot, and (2) you can’t navigate without data. The second one stops me in my tracks in the middle of the bridge for a second because o h fuck.

All I remember is the street name : Rue de University-something, and yeah okay, maybe remember was a strong word, but I felt like that was sort of right. Either way, that didn’t matter; my first priority was water. I had been s o thirsty basically since the second I had set up my tent last night, and I needed some h2o, stat. I cross the bridge into the centre of town, and see a little tap immediately, score! It doesn’t have any indication of whether it’s potable or not, so I do what I do every time, and just taste a little bit. I trust my mouth. Unfortunately, this time, definitely not potable. Tastes like blood, actually, and the entire rest of the walk down the street I’m trying to inconspicuously spit it all out, get the taste off me. I’m guessing it was a little conspicuous though, because I got more than one sideways glance.

Then I see a lovely sight, one I haven’t seen since back at the start; a spinny top water fountain :] I spin it, clean water comes out, and I think about the woman and the boy and how far apart we were now. How many weeks ago had that been now, three ? Two? Time starts to meld when you do nothing but walk; it was already just about three months till Christmas. And I never had any idea what day it was anymore, which was a little problematic when you buy all your own food. But it was,,, nice, I think – I liked not having Things To Do; all I needed was to walk, and eat, and sleep. And do my taxes and fix my phone, which is what I will oh so smoothly segue back into now!

Finding University-something street was easier than anticipated; I remembered it was on the right of wherever the bridge was, so I turned down one of the first streets and boom! First try. Well, almost first try; first I misread them and walked down a different street thinking it was University-something, but fear not, I realised,, once I’d gotten to the end.

Anyway, point is, I’ve found the SFR. I steel myself outside, take a few deep breaths, practice my various scripted responses – gotta be prepared when you’re,, talking with people – and reassure myself. I have totally got this! I open the door with g u s t o to try and boost my confidence except it’s a push door that I just sort of aggressively pull which definitely does not rattle me immensely. They’re very nice, and pretend they didn’t just watch me do that, and they speak enough English for me to convey what I need, and they have the SIM! Everything is fine, and great, and perfect, and why is he asking if I have a European bank account are you fucking kidding me-

He was not kidding me. In order to get the SIM I need, I need a European bank account (if you’re sick of this, brace yourself, because this blog is slowly just morphing into my complaints and sometimes they aren’t so much mental, sometimes they’re just the fucking French), which I most absolutely Do Not Have. So I do something crazy, and go off script; if I were to get someone’s permission (ie. my European family), could their card be used? Nope – it needs to match my name. Why?

He kindly tells me to go to a tabac instead, and get a prepaid one that I can then top up with whatever I need – for that one, any card can be used. Sweet as. I walk outside trying very hard not to have a Moment, trying to remember when I last saw a tabac while Cynic very helpfully repeats ‘do NOT cry you little baby pull it together’ on loop. I find one I walked past earlier, and getting one is so insanely easy it feels bizarre. I walk in, point at my phone and ask “SIM card?” in a vaguely insulting French accent, and he just goes “Aha!! Carte von SIM!”.

It’s a nice change, and I leave the shop with a smile on my face, €10 lighter. See? Everything does work out. I tamper down my wobbly emotions, take a chill pill. And I sit on the first bench I find, put the SIM in, and it doesn’t work and nothing works and everything is too much and then I’m properly crying for the first time since Scotland.

Don’t quite know how to explain how humiliating it is to sit on the side of the road and absolutely fall to bits because of a SIM card, but I’ll do my best. Actually, maybe I won’t put you through that, but let’s just say it’ll definitely be filed in the things-I-think-about-late-at-night-to-cringe-at category. Today is just a wobbly kind of day, I guess, as I sob into the heels of my hands, not yet realising a group of four older French men have stopped to stare at the crazed foreigner opposite them. I just feel so bad for missing everything, and the more days I spend away the further it feels like everyone is getting :[ Which objectively makes sense but still, ouch.

A little lightbulb goes off, and I realise I could just stay at the campground here, have a breather, take a bit of time to rot, sort out my emotions, figure it out. If they have internet, I can fix the card, then do my taxes and everything will be fine and I can breathe. I calm myself down, a few deep breaths (again). Wave to the four French men, who shrug and move on. Okay. Cool. There’s a plan, and there’s steps till I feel better, and – oh it’s night in Australia so that plan doesn’t work either.

Shame the guys left, because I put on quite the fucking show at that point. Actual borderline hysterics – it’s the hardest I’ve cried since I left the US, and that’s fucking embarrassing. Rest assured, the American sob was one for the ages, and I don’t think it’ll ever be beaten, but man this one was not fun. At some point, my testosterone filled monkey brain decides it’s had enough of my lame little emotions, and decides to fill me with controlled anger at myself, and a general ‘fuck all of this!!!’ sort of feeling. Love my Two Emotions.

I am going to walk till my legs or my brain breaks and preferably it’d be latter, but I’ll take what I can get. I shoulder my pack, walk into the local Casino all runny nosed and red-eyed, and no one bats an eye because I imagine to be in a broken-down Casino that’s half fenced-off right after they open, you have to be a little off the rails. And here’s where the fun really starts, because I buy a some bread and pesto, classic, and then my self-control shatters and I add a Bunch of binge foods to my little basket, and I already feel so horrible about having them there, and this isn’t going to end well but alas! My wobbly little brain doesn’t care much today, as hard as Optimist is trying to pump the breaks.

I spend too much money, and buy too many bad things, and I set off and immediately start binging. I’m sure at some point I’ll be put together enough to talk about my relationship with food and my body and the general-everything around that without crying, but today is not that day, so I’m going to need you to do some detective work here, and pick up the clues I’m putting down that point to it maybe not being the best.

It’s definitely not as bad as it used to be, because I manage to stop myself relatively quickly, manage to make myself put things away. I keep walking, following the arrows, stressed out of my mind, and it’s pretty and I’m by the river but all I can think about is getting back into the quiet. My legs are concrete, but I’m too stubborn to backtrack to the campsite – plus, I always just give in when I feel terrible, I’ve never casually walked 20km, so there’s a first time for everything today. I eat some more sugar, stop, start again. Ouch.

The way out of Cahors is, pardon my French (!), a bitch. It’s evil and mean and incredibly disheartening when you’re a weepy little coward; each of the steps an absolute monster effort to clear. I finally get to the top, turn back to see Cahors, and promptly start crying again. Dude what is happening??

I’m going to time-skip a little here, because no one wants to hear about my kiddie emotions and general binging problem, but I will say that I got the closest to homesick I probably ever will, and I just really wanted to be not-cold and go swimming and be where I was familiar and knew how to navigate. It was much more fun to have cry while ranting to my dad in the kitchen and eating cheese and gherkins; alone on a random hill on France wasn’t quite there.

I will leave a brief little section here for my future self to re-read though, because a lot of our crying revolved around how exhausting it was to try to do everything alone and where the fuck did we get that idea from?? At no point has anyone you loved, ever, sat you down and been like “hey, just wanted to make sure you know you can never rely on me for anything, and that any attempt to earnestly talk about your feelings will lead to the breakdown of this relationship”. It didn’t happen! If anything, most of your friendships haven’t gone as well as you were hoping for because you don’t talk about anything. You’re a self-fulfilling prophecy; snap the fuck out of it!

Anyway, bonus crying story; at some point, I’m walking past what I now know is La Rosière, and I’ve calmed myself down again, and there’s these big, gorgeous plains of grass, and in the middle of them all is this beautiful deer, just absolutely living it up, and I get all smiley, and then a cloud goes over the sun and I watch the shadow race towards me on the waving grass, watch as it covers me, which is a metaphor so insanely blindingly obvious I wouldn’t dream of using it in my actual writing, and one which promptly brings me to tears again. This time, I’m cannoballing snot from my nose and accidentally get it on the wheels of a passing car I Did Not See, so that was awesome and a little bit funny and now I’m snotty but laughing so pros and cons <33

All this is to say that time was passing very quickly and simultaneously at a snails pace, and I was having an intense goddamn sook all day.

-Les Mathieux-

Les Marhieux starts with a gîte that I have to force myself not to stop at, despite having never wanted to walk less in my life. Everything is lead, my pack weighs a hundred tons, my eyelids weight more. My goal this morning was to hit Montcuq, my goal after the SIM drama was to hit the chapel a few kilometres before it, my goal now is just to make it to Lascabanes, 16km away. There, I’ll be vaguely halfway, and therefore have cause to celebrate, and therefore, deserve a fucking bed.

As I wander, I call the gîtes in Lascabanes – all complet, full, no room. A ditch by the road is looking real comfortable, but I refrain, just this once. I call the gîtes in the towns leading up close to Lascabnes – complet. I do immediately start crying again, and finally my Optimist gets Cynic to fuck off and tries a new tactic; being nice. Actually, I’m not even going to give him the credit, because it’s not quite him. It’s more like I’m so tired and mopey and wobbly I’ve become Fear, become little baby me, so I have to baby myself in the non-patronising way, and just talk to myself like I would a kid, baby-proofing the world.

I’m trying to be nice, and be gentle, and tell myself I’ll figure everything out once we get to Labastide-Marnhac, and all I have to do is make it three more kilometres. Apologies to all that might find this blog vaguely useful so far in terms of mentally prepping for terrain and things like that, because all I can tell you is there’s a hill, and at some point another hill, but for now it’s all just moving around me, world-is-a-treadmill-you-aren’t-actually-moving style.

-Labastide-Marnhac-

The first houses are a little rough, still so far from the centre. And they’ve got dogs, too, loud ones. Ones that make me feel like my head is caving in – but Older Me is in control now, Kiddie Me doesn’t have to worry about a thing, sans getting to the church. When we get there, I collapse in the shade, set up, drink some water, cool down (get too cold, put on a jumper), eat a killer sandwich, smell the – helpfully yellow – flowers. It always seems so simple in hindsight, once it’s written down.

I call some more gîtes, dabble in some sweets (no idea where the line for binge vs. enjoyment is, but I’m calling it here), am fresh out of luck every time. There’s not a chance I’m making it to Lascabanes, and it’d sort of fuck up my self-imposed schedule of campsites to wildcamp tonight. And, even if I could, I wouldn’t. Most of the time, I have no idea how to listen to my body; it wants too much, demands too many opposing things, contradicts itself. I don’t understand it remotely. But today, it’s being pretty fucking clear – get me a bed and give me a shower and make me shut up, make the weepiness stop.

Something catches my eye in the funny little book – ferme. Not fermé, as in closed, but ferme, as in farm. I fucking love farms – and maybe I was clouded with my love for La Ferme de 1000 Couleurs, but shh – and this one was cheap, and only a few kilometres away, and the host spoke English, and I was praying with everything I had that he had a spot free as I dialled the line.

And he did. Several, actually – even better :] I only had to make it another three kilometres, then I could shower and rest and kid-proof myself a bit. I plucked up my courage, tugged the shoes and pack back on, started walking again. With the promise of warmth, the forty minutes went by quick – I even saw two more deer <33 Gravel paths and green, a new kind! Slim white trees, not birch I don’t think, but something tall and slender, dropping green jagged leaves everywhere. A small climb, a thicker forest, beautiful. I’m feeling so good that as I near it, I have to tug off my headphones and pause – do I really want to stop?

-Trigodina-

Yes. Jokes aside, getting to the halfway point feels capital i Important, and I like celebrating those things in little ways, and I don’t want to reach it miserable – it’d defeat the whole thing. So I turn right, off the GR65 and up the driveway of the gîte. After a bit of miscommunication and a Very Loud Dog, I manage to relay that I’m the one that called earlier, and he laughs.

“OH!! It is you – with the voice I thought it was a woman!”

Kill me.

The place is adorable, with an actually fully stocked kitchen, and I’m so excited to eat fucking beans in the morning my g o d you have no idea. It’s all soft greens and there’s a big piano with two crazy looking candelabras attached to it, and I’m feeling very wobbly in a gay way now.

I turn down dinner, say goodbye, and haul ass to the bathroom. Or first, the bedroom, where I meet my two roommates; one who whistles all the time, and one who doesn’t particularly have any defining features worthy of a nickname yet. I exchange basics with The Whistler, who went to Canada for a month seven years ago and somehow completely remembers how to speak English, despite not touching it for seven years (what??), as I grab my towel and change of clothes.

And then it’s time to ruin this poor guys water bill. There’s zero water pressure, but it’s okay, and I think the new requirement for my brain letting me have a full rest day is going to be having perfect showers. If I can get that, I’ll stay a week. Anyway, I’m in there for a solid fifteen minutes, trying to massage away my worries – which does not work. Convinced massage is the worlds biggest scam, all it ever does it make it hurt more. But that doesn’t bother me tonight, not really. Because tonight I’m clean. All I’m missing is hot milk with vanilla and cinnamon and a hug – I think if I got the trinity down, I’d be Cured.

I wash my clothes, hang them out to dry, generally enter the Ice Age France must surely be experiencing because it is so fucking cold. I will say, this place is very cute, but farm number one still wins – I miss Fred. I fucking love that guy. Oh, and the place has internet, so I sort out the SIM, and it doesn’t work but actually this time, and at that point I give up completely and grab my things and head outside to sit in the hammock and write whilst slowly turning to ice.

As they eat, I while away my time scribbling, first in the very comfortable hammock, but then eventually inside when it got too cold to bear. I’m called down for dinner by The Whistler, who wants me to try some apple tart :] It’s very sweet – the tart and the gesture both – and I’m smiley as I sit at the entirely French table. The guy next to me asks me where I’m from, and that much I do understand, so I answer ; “Australie!”

“Aha!” He says, raising eyebrows jokiky, “Rugby!!!”

And then several French things follow that I most definitely do not, so I just laugh and say, “France too!”, which seems to be the right thing because he ROARS, and slaps my shoulder. Nailed it.

After dessert, I go outside to re-set up my washing inside to dry, and hear the craziest piano I’ve ever heard in my life – I’m talking keys clanging, bashing on the poor thing. I shelve the washing for later – I need to hear this properly – and walk back inside, perch myself on the stairs, and listen to host guy play some absolute ragers. At some point he distributes lyric sheets, and there’s a communal sing-a-long, which would be hell if my presumed English ignorance hadn’t come to save the day.

After concluding with a flourish, he turns to us and laughs, says “Money time!”. Very Christian.

Anyway, we get stamps and give money and I make it very awkward by waiting too long because I don’t quite put the puzzle pieces together and yikes not fun – but hey, €16.75 for a night with internet and a bed isn’t so bad! I’ve definitely spent too much tonight, but right now, that feels worth it.

I finally bring in my still-wet laundry, re-hang it up to dry, turn back outside to see a half moon and The Whistler standing stark against the light of the house, and I wish I could say something poetic, full of depth and beauty, something about the way the moon lit his face up, and you could see it reflected in the pools of his glasses, but sadly it was just the massive light up vape he was ripping which doesn’t leave as much room for poetry.

I make my bed with the hospital grade paper sheets, get set up, and go back downstairs to write, staying up way too late (again) with my knockoff orangina, mistrust my ability to control myself and absentmindedly binge again, right about the same time a blog entirely about losing weight on the camino pops up and ooh I have a time. Have a somewhat melancholy end to an otherwise lovely afternoon, what with the heavy heavy regret and the gross binge-adjacent thoughts and just !! Ouch.

To be honest with you, I don’t even think I need the milk and vanilla and cinnamon – I think I just need the hug!

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Day 34 – September 23rd

??? to Trigodina

18.0km

~ 360.3km total

€44.35

~ €484.49 total

(725.0km combined)

(€1,013.72 combined)