And so for the first time i have tears. Tears on leaving. Tears to leave after too short a visit. Too little time, too much going on, too much to do. Hallelujah to froglets, two reds to accompany my journey. the train is packed and i wish for first class seats.
I wonder what the next two weeks hold and where my onward journey will take me. i veer between trying to hitch that lift on a cargo boat and catching a ferry to denmark, make my way to Nyksund or on to Finland perhaps. My bank balances are healthy, renting my home gives good income to supplement my pension. I live and move simply. I wonder if i could pay for a cleaner, keep my house clean and tidy such that packing to let someone else live in it would not be so traumatic. No, i could not stand the limitations imposed on my life by constant angst about the need for tidyness, places for things. Houseswap, i could think again. Mytwinplace, give it a go. My profile is half ready, my credits are there.
I have so much to say but for now it is not in my mind. I wonder how this journey will pan out, recording my old journals yet perhaps reflecting on the process as i do so. Will i share my australian journey as i record it? Im unsure, i think it more personal, more wild. This journey has been so controlled, so cautious, no wildness or wilderness, no free abandon. So small a world the Faroes.
I know where im going, i no longer carry a travel guide, i have no desire to see more. I know when the shop has deliveries of fresh vegetables, im carrying curry powder, i will seek out lentils, buy rice. I will make a better job of feeding myself without the need to be on the move all the time.
Two and a half hours in edinburgh, thats thirty minutes travel and one hour to kill, maybe marks and sparks will help me out with another froglet. I'm needing support with this journey. Cant believe im getting onto another plane tho a short hour is just about manageable. No claustrophbia and little time to dwell. Chicken salad wrap mid flight, what ever the time of day, more salad leaves than ill see for the next week.
If i hitch a lft on a cargo boat it could turn out to be a boat going anywhere. direction is immaterial, i like happenchance, go with the flow. Change the plan, forever and without doubt, stay free to let circumstances dictate. The woman beside me has keyboard clicks on a loud shuffle of the deck, it cuts through me each time she swypes. My brain is not accepting, not adjusting. My second glass will help.
I want to start my australian journals now, want to re live and love. Im searching skyscanner for cheap flights from sorvagur, maybe i will find myself moving from city to city. I needlessly empty my phone battery, achieveing nothing.
I will need to find a rhythm. Writing, walking, cooking, reviewing perhaps. I nearly had my nordic poles with me but the Faroes are not conducive so they have just moved from norwich to leeds. My possessions have now become scattered. I am becoming disparate. Part of me is in leeds, in bracon ash, in norwich and yet i am essentially here with me. How much more will i discard from my pack. My heart is my home, it moves with me.
I have conflicting advice. Twenty minutes between the stated bus departure and my flight arrival. atlantic airways tell me the bus will wait for my flight this evening. The bus company says it wont. Last time we arrived half an hour early. I may yet find myself hitching and hope it doesnt rain. If i miss the bus, i miss my ferry. I will have no bed.
I miss faroese wifi. Im am on public transport yet am without. I understand i can log in, get 15 minutes free but thats hardly long enough to begin a search, i need to put time aside to consider my options. How to leave is more fulfilling as a challenge than whether to return. I nevertheless try but this is not a virgin train to edinburgh but cross country to glasgow. i do not have even 15mins free connection.
I chose and set this moment months ago. I never thiught I would see it into action. I can contact birgir, explore the reality of the cargo boat situation, a bit like tracking down that cocacola lorry in Australia or hitching the over night ferry from nova scotia. Making an early decision about leaving will give me the freedom of staying. im still carrying a sleeping bag, the most carried but least used item in my backpacking existence.
I look at my thread worn backpack, eighteen months of daily use challenged its life, fifteen years ago. My day sack too, although less old, shreds black plastic confetti on all my belongings. Mostly, i dont fret but carrying a quarter cucumber on my journey home drew my attention more sharply to its condition.
I thought i wasnt backpacking any longer. I miss my mournful reams of writing, found i stopped writing once i stayed still, once i felt at home, had companionship. I miss the lost hours and the depths im taken to when engrossed in my journey. I love my children and my grandchildren, love them dearly but it is not enough. Love can never be enough. For me.
I stand at leeds station, a woman, very drunk at two in the afternoon struggles with the stairs and i find myself behind her, engaged in dialogue with a station worker, who talks of the pitiful state of people such as she. She needs spiritual guidance he says. I say maybe she needs love or maybe shes just having an off day. I think he may be muslim, because he talks about how he knows what she needs, she needs to learn, needs rules to follow. I say she needs understanding. I say, how fortunate we are to have the strength, resources and resilience not to be in that state, here, this afternoon. He does not understand.
We continue to engage in conversation but we are poles apart. He is the guard for my platform. I have fifteen minutes before my train. I say my inner love is the same as his spiritual guidance but he wont have it. the world is in a mess, i say, no he says, people in the world are in a mess and i cannot disagree. He starts to talk about jesus and i realise i am wrong about his faith. I nevertheless still think we speak from the same place, our bellies breathing love into the world.
I look at the bales of golden straw, i savour the trees, the hedges, the thistles, dandelions and sow thistles that poppy asks about, plants she now loves to learn to identify and name. Poppy, sleeping in my arms, riding behind me on my bike. Edward, now conversing in two words sentences, buggy running parkrun together, talking while running, shall i run or shall i walk, cuddling laughing, cuddling and laughing.
I find Edwards green pipecleaner snake in my bag as we draw near to the station, Poppy turns it into a snail. A creeping snail, snake snail. I have tears as i wave goodbye.
