The Way Home
My body gave out in the spring of 2020. In many ways, life was over before my body betrayed me. Because of Covid, we didn’t see anyone. My husband, John, and I stayed mostly indoors. Like others, we survived one day to the next, living in a fog of confusion, fear, disbelief. Life was a shell of its formal self.
But now, thanks to whatever was wracking my body, I struggled to walk, hobbling around the house. When I wasn’t working, I slept on the couch or watched TV. I was in pain all the time.
I’d never been so directly confronted with the frailty of myself. It was as if something evil had blossomed in my body and bloomed outward. I could feel it swishing around with every bend of my finger, every turn of my head. The knowledge that it could be infinitely worse hung over me, an invisible snake coiled around my shoulders that I constantly tried to dislodge and couldn’t. As people got sick and died — as we all struggled to understand how to stay safe — I knew it could be worse. I was the lucky one, breathing and Covid free. And the snake coiled tighter.
For years, my body had been a thing that I owned. It was a vehicle for doing what I needed to do. I pushed it constantly. I’d spent my twenties working punishing hours, my late twenties completing an MBA in addition to my rigorous work schedule, and my thirties working nonstop to build my business. I slept very little and worked all the time, my body bearing the brunt of those demands. Finally, it was pushing back.
And yet I couldn’t listen. I visited doctor after doctor, focused only on a diagnosis. A name, I reasoned, would let me identify and remove this thing. But all the doctors could tell me was that I had an autoimmune disease — when pressured they’d say maybe psoriatic arthritis — and I was unlikely to get better. The treatment was a Biologic, which meant a weekly injection, an increased risk of cancer, and a severely compromised immune system during a pandemic. I declined, and instead lived with whatever had conquered my body.
I’d wake up each morning, my hands curled into fists and aching with pain. I’d stay in bed as long as I could to avoid the discomfort that came with the first movement of the day. The slow shuffle to the bathroom. I was 38 years old, and I moved like I was 98. When trying to step over the lip of my stair in my home in Philadelphia one day, I fell, bruising my shins. The things I’d loved to do slowly came to a stop. One of the most important: I couldn’t hike. I couldn’t make it across a parking lot without needing to sit down and take a rest.
Before I’d gotten sick, a trip to Scotland in 2019 had inspired me to try thru hiking, the name for long-distance hiking. The last event I attended before Covid lockdown was a talk by a thru hiker at REI who had hiked the Appalachian Trail (2,190 miles). I’d taken copious notes on a paper handout he’d given us, but now, with Covid and my illness, the rucksack I’d purchased went into the basement to collect dust. My dreams of doing a thru hike slowly withered.
It wasn’t until years later in 2024, living in Scotland, that John suggested we hike the West Highland Way. We were sitting in an Airbnb in Campbeltown on an adrenaline high from taking our first trip into our new home of Scotland, the country we love so much. The sun was setting over the harbor, the lamps lining the street just coming on, and the lights strung around the water twinkled. Thanks to the suspended realism that comes with vacation, I said yes without hesitation, even while I wondered if I could physically do it. John showed me a video series of a YouTube couple who had hiked the West Highland Way, and I realized. I definitely couldn’t do it.
But I couldn’t let the idea go. I kept looking at thru hikes, scrolling through the descriptions on walkhighlands.com, and I settled on the Great Glen Way, a 75-mile hike. I liked it for a few reasons. First, the Great Glen Way runs across Scotland from Fort William to Inverness. I liked the idea of literally hiking across Scotland. Also, it’s relatively flat. The route is where two land masses of Scotland smushed together millions of years ago and formed a series of lochs, which the Scots used to create a canal that runs across the country. The idea of walking along a canal for 75-miles felt in the realm of possible, even if just one step before insanity. Lastly, it’s not as popular of a route as the West Highland Way, which during the busy season reminds me pony rides, with one person following directly behind the other.
We decided to hike the Great Glen Way in early April. Not an ideal time if you want to increase your odds for good weather, but it was when John had his spring break from classes, so we had little choice. We booked a few campsites, secured a hotel for a rest break three days in, and then largely ignored the fact that it was coming up until two-weeks before we were due to leave. That was when John decided he couldn’t go. He announced this to me as I was rereading Wild for the sixth time.
I stared at the book cover, tracing the W with my finger. If you haven’t read Wild, it’s a memoir by Cheryl Strayed who, when she was 26, hiked her way out of despair over three months on the Pacific Coast Trail (2,650 miles). For other non-hiking reasons, this book had changed my life. I reread it every now and again because the book feels like an old friend.
But now that goddamn friend was staring me in the face, challenging me.
“John,” I called to him where he stood in the kitchen. “I want to do the hike on my own.”
This was a big moment. If John’s reaction had been anything else, I don’t think I would have gone. But the utter joy and excitement that bubbled up left me breathless.
“Babe! That’s a great idea! I’m so proud of you! WOW!” he gushed, as I tried to calm him down in case I should change my mind.
That night I slept fitfully. I’d awake, remember there was something to be nervous about, but wouldn’t recall what until a moment later. Then the fear would come crashing down, making my body go numb and rigid.
The next day was better, because I was able to start doing something about my fear. I created a spreadsheet for the trip, each day a single row filled with information like the distance I’d have to cover, how long it would likely take me, where I’d sleep that night, and what I would eat on the way. If a box on my spreadsheet was empty, then I knew I had to find the information to fill it. When John and I had been planning to hike together, I’d been easy going about the trip, bolstered by the assurance of a companion to figure things out as we went. Now I was a rigorous, testing myself on each and every aspect that might go wrong.
I calculated how much food I’d have to carry, and realizing I couldn’t possibly carry everything, arranged to ship a box of items to my hotel half way through my hike. I called the Caledonian Canal, and secured a key that would let me into their toilet and shower facilities along the route. Never one to trust my cell phone service and battery life, I purchased a Great Glen Way map, marking where I’d stop at night in the folds of the pages. I read a book I’d bought years ago on navigating with a compass. This book had traveled with John and me twice to Scotland on holiday and remained unused, yet here I was in the living room of our flat, thumbing through the pages for the first time as if my life depended on it.
As these actions relaxed the fear that had mounted in my body, I found planning the trip enjoyable and strangely empowering. John was so busy with school that I had no choice but to set up our tent alone in our front garden, a job I had only watched him do whenever we went camping. I also had to relearn how to light our backpacking stove, recalling the first time we lit it in a bothy and thought we were going to burn down the building.
A week before I was due to leave, I packed everything in my bag and hoisted it up with a scale. The dial read thirty pounds, and I was elated. The bag felt heavy, but manageable, and I silently congratulated myself on being such a discerning packer. But as my last week at home continued, and I added items to the pack — a bag of trail mix, warm long sleeved shirts, and the water bladder filled with actual water — I found my celebration was premature. The night before I left, my bag weight fifty pounds. I was essentially a pack with legs.
John was so concerned about the weight of my pack that he offered to rent a car and pick me up the last day of the trip. I waved him off, not understanding the subtext of his offer. “You will not be able to carry this pack for a week. I can barely carry it down our hall. I will be picking you up early.”
I was nervous. I realized my pack was heavy. But it didn’t matter. There was nothing for me to take out; nothing else I could buy to replace the heavier necessary items. I was hiking the Great Glen Way and I was carrying this pack.
When I rejected the option to take a Biologic, it marked the end of what my rheumatologist could offer me for treatment. “Come back when you’re ready,” she said, and we ended our call. Now I had to figure out the next step.
After Covid lockdown had ended — when it felt safe-ish to venture into the world provided you wore a mask and didn’t touch anything — I scheduled an appointment with a massage therapist a few blocks from my house. Massages are something I’d always enjoyed, but I could count on one hand the number of them I’d had. And yet, the need for one had arisen so strongly, I found myself Googling options despite my conviction that I couldn’t afford such an extravagance. My body craved touch. The urge was so great I could vocalize it, though I didn’t because it felt strange to say aloud. Even though I had weathered the pandemic with my husband, his touch wasn’t the one I craved. I wanted my body to be cared for, loved even, and I didn’t want to feel like I had to reciprocate that care to someone else.
Julia was this little sprite of a thing, a mask covering their face so only their large eyes stared out at me intently. They perched on an armchair across from me and asked, quite seriously, what I was hoping to get from the session. “Um, a massage?” I thought to myself, but I played along. I explained my illness the best I could, in a hurry to scramble onto the table and feel their hands on me.
Having felt some relief from the experience, I returned two weeks later, deciding that a massage every few weeks sure beat injecting myself with medication. This time, a few minutes into the massage, Julia paused and asked what I was feeling. I couldn’t name the feeling, but I could name the picture playing behind my eyelids. It was a small worm, inching its way up the broken interior of a dark and rotted tree.
“Let’s name him,” suggested Julia.
“Wormy,” I replied. I decided then and there I was never coming back.
The first night of my Great Glen Way hike I camped outside Fort William. The hour long walk from the train station was brutal, sweat pouring down my back as I struggled under the weight of my massive pack. And I wasn’t even walking the trail yet; this detour was simply to get to the Glen Nevis Campsite where I’d spend my first night. The site afforded stunning views of Ben Nevis, a collapsed volcano that is the highest peak in Britain. I liked the idea that something that has collapsed in on itself can still be the highest peak in a country, an imposing and stunning sight.
When I checked in, a sign by the front desk warned me of storms with wind gusts so strong that we were camping at our own risk. The woman at the desk chatted with me briefly about the height of my tent, and then with an unconvincing look said “You should be fine,” briefly describing the direction I should pitch my tent to avoid the wind lifting it up in the night. I was too flustered to pay attention to her directions.
The wind was just beginning as I staked out an area to camp, finally deciding on a low point behind a picnic table, hoping the table would give me some cover. It didn’t.
I quickly discovered that pitching the tent in the protected haven of my front garden is quite different than in an open field with an approaching wind storm. When I was done, I texted a picture to John of a sad looking bit of canvas resembling a tent to which he supportingly replied “It looks great!”
As I was digging through my bag inside my tent, trying to organize everything before the wind blew me away, a ranger came by to say that my tent stakes were never going to last the night. “Go to the shop and buy some bigger stakes, and tie some lines,” he advised. “Also, if things get too bad, I’ll be opening the laundry room, and you can sleep in there.”
That last bit was lost on me, as my mind was stuck on tying lines to my tent. In all our camping expeditions, John and I had never tied down our tent. There’s little need in the U.S. where the winds generally stay at a respectable speed. So, at six o’clock the first evening of my trip, I found myself frantically watching “How to set up your tent,” on REI’s website. “This can’t be a good omen,” I thought to myself, as I skipped ahead to the third step I’d never seen before about tying guy lines.
I felt like a fraud as I trudged over to the camp store that was just about to close. The store clerk pointed me to the five different types of stakes they stocked, which even in my current state of crisis, astounded me. She was kind enough to lend me a rubber mallet, after I admitted that I had nothing to drive the stakes into the ground.
I thought about John as I tied the guy lines for my tent. When we camp, John carries a little plastic booklet of various knot types, and he practices tying the different types on a bit of rope he keeps in his pocket for this express purpose. Here I was, desperately in need of his knotting abilities, and I found myself tying a…what kind was it? It was a knot, I decided.
Once my tent was tied down, I returned the mallet and walked over to the restaurant for dinner in the pouring rain. My waterproofs barely kept me dry. As I entered the restaurant shaking off sheets of water, I looked around, clocking all the other dry and nicely dressed patrons who were staying in holiday houses — sturdy structures with roofs and doors — on the campsite grounds. All through dinner, I wondered about my tent and if it would be there when I went back.
After dinner, I was bolstered by seeing my little tent still standing, thankfully looking none the worse for wear since I’d done such a mediocre job setting it up. The rain had stopped, but the wind was blowing so hard there was nothing else to do but crawl into the tent to go to sleep. Except that sleep, when there are winds at this level, is nearly impossible. I thought about the row of trees not far from where I’d pitched my tent. At the time, the trees seemed like they’d offer me protection, but now, I wondered if they’d impale me in the night. Figuring I’d rather be asleep if this happened, I drifted into a fitful slumber.
When I woke to the pale light filtering into my tent, I felt immense relief. I’d survived the night. If I could make it through that, surely I could make it through the rest of the trip. The wind still played with the edges of my tent, blowing the little lantern I’d affixed to ceiling back and forth, up and down, a bouncing bobble for the wind’s restive fingers. Every minute or so, a huge gust would come, twisting the top of the tent and straining the canvas, like the tent was performing some extreme yoga move, stretching far to the side. Then all would relax, briefly, until the windswept tent repeated its exercise.
At breakfast, I chatted with an Australian man who had camped not far from me. He admitted he hadn’t slept at all, which strangely gave me courage. I’d slept — albeit not well — through the night. Perhaps I had more fortitude than I’d thought. “You looked quite calm setting up your tent,” he admitted to me, “I was watching you as I was setting up mine,” to which I laughed out loud, because calm was the last feeling I’d have named during that exercise.
But I wasn’t surprised at his revelation. I am quite good at faking calmness, especially when my inner thoughts are at the other extreme. Almost as if the more chaotic and upset I feel on the inside requires the balance of another extreme on the outside. While it can be a very handy skill to possess, more often it leaves me feeling incredibly lonely. People assume I’m okay, that I know what I’m doing, and that I don’t need help. But the opposite is true. More often than I admit, I need hands to guide and support me.
I don’t know why, but I returned to Julia’s studio. I reached into some reserve of social confrontation I didn’t know I had and I told Julia that I was not going to talk about Wormy again. Julia’s acceptance of my boundary was quick and judgement free. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that, yet their response encouraged me to return again. And again. Soon, I’d established a pattern of visiting Julia every two weeks. I’d discovered that my Health Savings Account would pay for the sessions, and so with the financial part covered, I was free to simply contend with my inner monologue that continually asserted I was a spoiled brat for accepting this extravagance. The guilt of such a luxury weighed on me. And yet, when Julia’s hands were on me, I felt at peace. The roiling monster in my body calmed, and I could breathe.
I often thought about a doctor I’d seen years ago in my twenties, a gastrointestinal specialist I’d sought out when I’d had some other undiagnosable condition that left me unable to eat without feeling nauseous. He’d seemed unimpressed by my symptoms. “You need to deal with the stress in your life,” he’d shared with me, then after a pause, he offered his own form of stress relief. “I have a massage every week.”
I couldn’t contain my surprise, “Every week?!” I’d replied.
“I have a stressful job,” he said matter of factly, without any trace of guilt (or, let it be said, recognition of his fortune). He continued to examine me, his thick well-manicured fingers squeezing my wrist. I thought about his unapologetic attitude often, especially as I was walking to Julia’s feeling simultaneously grateful and ashamed that I should be allowed such a treat.
Massage was only one tool Julia used to bring me out of my shell. Sometimes, they simply laid their hands on me, asking me what I was thinking when they felt something change. It’s a form of treatment called Craniosacral therapy, and as far as I can tell, it’s akin to witchcraft. Julia’s probing was eerily accurate. My thoughts would carry to something lovely or dark, and immediately Julia would know, simply from the rhythm of my body changing. I’d always believed in the mind-body connection, except now I was living it in a way that I hadn’t experienced before.
I finally admitted to Julia what I’d been scared to admit to myself. “I’ve abandoned my body. It’s always been this vehicle to do what I need to do, and now it won’t respond anymore. That makes me angry, so I’d rather just ignore it.”
Julia was quiet, and then said to me “Look.” I glanced down at the table where my body lay wrapped in a sheet. As I had shared that insight, my arm had wrapped itself around my torso in a hug. The movement hadn’t been conscious; I wasn’t aware of it until Julia pointed it out. And yet the meaning to both of us was clear. Even if I had abandoned my body, even if I was angry at it for betraying me, it was still there. It would still support me, albeit not in the way I considered optimal.
A shift happened after that moment. I began to think about my body as something to be revered; to be listened to. I realized my mind had been calling the shots for so long, the unrelenting drill sergeant barking orders. Finally, I decided to listen closely to the soft animal of my body. It was hard to hear over the constant hum of my mind, but I found if I could tune in — really listen — I could differentiate between my whirring thoughts and the undercurrent of my body’s soft voice.
As I tuned in, the shouting my body had employed to gain traction, to be heard, started to subside and my pain lessened. I was doing things for my body with just a quiet nudge from it. I changed my diet. I prioritized exercise that my body wanted rather than the grueling kind my mind demanded. If I was tired, I took a nap. I sat in an infrared sauna my husband built for me in our closet, stressed at the leisurely nature of sitting under lights when I could be doing something, but realizing that this…this was what my body wanted.
By the third day of my hike, my feet were shot. The blisters that had started — seemingly sweet and innocuous along my pinky toes — were now so large it looked as if I had a second toe on top of my toe. Each step along the picturesque canal was agony, and I was resting as much as I was hiking. I had three miles left until my hotel, and I wasn’t sure if I could make it. Yet, when I checked in with myself, I could feel that there wasn’t anything else I would rather be doing. Despite the pain, I was having fun. My mind and body agreed on that. I wanted to be here, doing this.
I’d woken that morning at my campsite all alone, unzipping my tent flap to reveal the loch and mountains and sky.
I drank my coffee and packed up my gear in the drizzling rain, singing to myself as I stepped away from my campsite and headed out for my day. I’m happiest when I’m outdoors, and here I was living in it. Each evening I was so exhausted I could barely stay awake long enough to eat and write in my journal, and yet every morning my body woke ready to walk again. The sheer miracle of that astounded me.
So I couldn’t blame my body when an hour and a half away from my hotel it said “No more.” But I had no choice but to keep walking. I thought of Cheryl Strayed and her descriptions in Wild of the physical toll the hike took. When her too-small boots had ruined her feet and, during a rest break, toppled over a cliff, she’d put on her camp sandals to hike. At this thought, I paused. I dug my crocs out of my pack and put them on. Sweet relief flooded through me, and I packed away my hiking shoes, taking one tenuous step on my crocs and then another. I hobbled into Fort Augustus this way, slowly and painfully, but walking with my humongous pack still on my back.
I was so broken by the time I got to my hotel that the staff took one look at me and asked me to sit down as they checked me in. I collapsed into the soft sofa in their exquisitely appointed lounge, letting my pack collapse next to me. Some social semblance told me I should move the pack to the ground, but I couldn’t muster the strength, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pick it back up. As a woman brought me a Hot Toddy, she sized up the situation and asked if I’d like them to take my bag to my room. I protested out of good grace, but I think we both realized one of us had to move the bag and it wasn’t going to be me. “All part of the service,” she said, as she hoisted the bag on her back, gasping at the weight of it then, hunched over, made her way up the stairs.
When I’d finished my drink, another staff member fetched the box I’d shipped to myself and walked me up to my room, carrying the box for me. He showed me around my space, helpfully pointing out my laundry bag, and then left me to settle in. As he departed, I turned to see the most enormous soaking tub residing in it’s own room adjacent to the bedroom.
I hadn’t thought about those details when I’d booked the hotel — I’d just reserved a room at a reasonably affordable but nice hotel. And yet, someone had thought about that detail for me, and I literally wept with joy, overcome by the care of people who didn’t know me yet could see and anticipate the support I needed. I was ready to quit the Great Glen Way, call John and tell him to rent the car and pick me up, but the care of people who owed me absolutely nothing caught me before I fell.
As I lay in my soaking tub, reveling in the warm water, examining my poor battered feet, I came up with a plan. I only had one more night of camping on my trip, having booked a hostel the other night because of the waypoint location. Rather than do that one night of camping, I’d book another room and ship my camping things home. This would lighten my bag and allow me to continue with my trip. I reasoned it was better to finish the trail than hold onto my last night of camping.
On my rest day, I went to the local shop. Fort Augustus is a small town that sits at the bottom of Loch Ness. I imagine most people come to search for the Loch Ness Monster rather than to shop, so the grocery, pharmacy and post office are all contained in one small store at the corner of town. Yet, their stock is marvelous. I was able to buy shipping supplies, blister plasters, and food I needed for the remainder of my trip.
After boxing up my camping supplies, I carried them back to the post office. A local man offered to carry my boxes for me as he watched me struggle to weave in and out of the accumulating tourist traffic, gathering to watch a bridge open over the canal. In the post office, the clerk told me it would cost £60 to ship one of my packages because it was one centimeter longer than allowed, then quickly taped down the bag for me to bring the shipping cost to £12. With every interaction, I was struck by the care freely given. People granted it to a obvious outsider; an American accent wandering through their countryside, callously tossing her mucky pack on couches, entitled, clearly unprepared, yet seemingly calm.
I lapped up every bit of that care, that kindness, stopping short of letting the man carry my parcels to the post office. I was grateful, thankful, filled with joy when people offered gestures that might have seemed small, but felt enormous. Each gesture was exactly the support I needed at the time, and I wondered how they knew. Smiles, exchanges, curious questions; despite the physical drain the days of hiking took on my body, the magic of the people I met on the trail kept me going.
Later, when I’d returned to Edinburgh, I was relating the experience to my friend, Amanda. “I’ve never encountered that kind of hospitality,” I confided. “It was so practical, so special, so…” I actually couldn’t find the words.
“The Highlands are known for their hospitality,” Amanda said. “Because years ago, traveling there would have been extremely hard, and when you arrived somewhere, you needed a warm fire, a drink, a soft bed. Those things meant your survival.”
I thought this over carefully. Those offerings had meant my survival, but the fact that people gave these things with such apparent joy is the part that touched a chord in me.
That, and the fact that no one was surprised a 41-year old woman was hiking the Great Glen Way on her own. Despite my (and my mother’s) feelings to the contrary, it turns out I’m unremarkable.
Before my trip, I had expected to feel in danger for most of the hike. I’d anticipated being scared and uncomfortable, looking over my shoulder to ascertain if the man behind me was simply walking, or walking after me. Even after that terror faded, when I realized I felt safe, I still expected others to be fearful for me, or at the very least, impressed by my bravery. But no one was. People would ask what I was doing simply to make conversation, and when I’d answer I was hiking the Great Glen Way, they’d nod. To them, I was no different than the hundreds of people they’d met before me.
Even with this easy acceptance, I couldn’t get over the habit of explaining to people why John wasn’t with me. Why I was alone. After my explanation, they’d stare at me slightly baffled, likely trying to remember if they’d asked at all.
Julia and I developed a rhythm. I’d come into their studio, we’d chat for 15-minutes about what was happening in my life, and then I’d set goals for our session. As our work progressed, I was able to articulate what my body wanted more easily. I could name feelings and point to where I felt them. I was taking back myself, one limb at a time. When Julia massaged my feet, commenting on how strong they were, I thought back to the man who had sexually harassed me outside my office building when I was twenty-two. He’d been dressed in a three piece suit and had stopped and asked me to sit on the stairs by my office, claiming he was a podiatrist and had never seen such lovely feet. We sat for 10-minutes as he knelt in front of me, gripping my heal, running his hands over my soles, as coworker after coworker walked by, looked at me and continued inside.
“You seemed so calm,” they later said. “We thought you were fine.” But I hadn’t been fine. I’d been twenty-two, sitting outside my office building being touched by someone I didn’t want touching me. He was so polite I didn’t want to be rude and tell him to get his fucking hands off me. So I sat quietly and let him squeeze my soles.
I thought about that man, but then about others who had taken something from me, removing parts of my body like a sculptor chipping away at his work, and now I had the unenviable task of putting those fallen pieces of matter back together.
I thought of the man who had tried to come to my hotel room in Copenhagen. I’d taught a class earlier in the day, and when someone asked where I was staying, I freely shared the information, not considering one of them would try to come to my door at 9:30pm, stopped only by a vigilant hotel staff. I felt so exposed that night I barely slept, some piece of me gone thanks to him and the reaction of my parents who thought I was overreacting.
I thought about my parents, who separated when I was nine and divorced when I was fifteen, and the sadness that hung over our house, over me, like a dark velvet drape that kept out the light. I spent a year being anorexic and bulimic in the effort to control some aspect of my quickly unraveling young life. Except that I realized that even if I could control my body weight, there were other people controlling my body; where my body would reside and how long it would spend at each of my parents’ residences on specific days of the week.
I thought about the years John and I had tried to conceive a child. The IUI rounds we’d done, and how it always culminated with me by myself in a doctor’s office, hips up as the nurse injected me. I was so lonely on that paper wrapped table, the experience so sad, that I often lay there and stared at the ceiling, wondering what was wrong with my body that I couldn’t conceive a child. At the same time, I wondered if I really wanted to get pregnant or if I was simply trying because most of my friends had children and I didn’t want to be left behind.
Each of those sessions with Julia felt like I pushed matter back onto my chipped body, reclaiming and re-sculpting myself as a went. These feet are mine, I thought, and they are strong. This space is mine, and I choose to put my body here. This womb is mine, and even empty, I am full. My body wraps around itself to tell me it’s here, it’s got me. I am home.
The first day of my hike on the Great Glen Way, I hobbled into camp exhausted. I was unlocking one of the countless gates you encounter in the wilds of Scotland when I looked up to see the most brilliant rainbow against the dark gray sky. That rainbow felt like another omen, contrasting starkly with my video tent tutorial less than 24-hours before. That rainbow told me that perhaps this was a reasonable task to undertake.
Even with the rainbow, even with surviving that windy first night, the blisters, the shuffle in my crocs to my hotel, I couldn’t forget the hurdle that waited me at the end of the hike. My last day was a 20-mile distance with a steep climb at the start. I’d never hiked 20-miles before. I wasn’t sure I could.
I woke on the last day, showered, and bandaged my feet. I was getting so good at this part that I could cut my moleskin patches in duplicate, lay them out, and then swiftly apply them, adding additional blister patches as I went.
My accommodation was next to a stream, and I ate my morning oatmeal while staring at two ducks swimming upstream, a task I considered a herculean effort mirroring my own.
My bag packed, I set off through the parking lot, passing a group of fellow hikers whose suitcases were being loaded into a van. They would be driven the two miles to where the trail started again before their bags would be taken to the final stop in Inverness. Meanwhile, I trudged the two miles through town, carrying my pack and feeling slightly smug that in this one thing, I was remarkable.
Every other person I’d met on the trail was having their bags shuttled from hotel to hotel. I was the only person I’d met — save two other women I glimpsed carrying their massive bags — who was both carrying her own bag and camping most of the way. It didn’t occur to me why people had elected to do one or the other — have their bags carried or stay in hotels — until later when John and I started researching pack weight I realized I’d been a complete numpkin about how much I was carrying in order to camp. But it didn’t matter. I was experiencing the trail the way I wanted to.
Six days on the trail had hardened my body. I covered 10 miles without issue, stopping midway in the pouring rain at the Eco Cafe, a small cafe in the middle of nowhere, where £20 gets you the most delicious and filling homemade lunch by a lovely couple.
I was the only one at the cafe given the torrential rains, and the owner came running out in her wellies exclaiming in a loud voice “Oh dearie, oh my, oh my darling, what are ya doing, what are ya doing out, in, THIS?!” she finished, meeting me at the locked gate and peering through the metal slats that separated their house from the cafe tables. Once I’d explained myself, and she ascertained I was American but could say Edinburgh correctly, she agreed to give me lunch. I sat huddled under the only covered area, eating each and every delicious thing they brought me, save the bit of my cake I put in my pocket for John, who was meeting me that evening in Inverness.
As I sat there, the rain lightened, and the sun came out. I squelched through the mud, back to to the gate to return my tray, used the luxurious composting toilet (it is a luxury after days in the woods) and set off to cover my last ten miles.
The hardest thing about the last part of the hike was that I kept thinking I was at the end, only to discover I was not. I entered Inverness by way of Craig Dunain, so from a distance I assumed Craig Dunain was Inverness. Once I realized my error I continued on, following the route on AllTrails since battery life was no longer a concern. AllTrails led me to the end point of the trail, mysteriously situated in a parking lot outside the Inverness Leisure Centre, where I called John to explain I had finished.
“John, I’m done!” I declared. “Look at the picture I just texted you!” And I sat back, smiling at my accomplishment.
“Um, darlin’, you’re not done,” John explained. “I’m sitting at a marker at the end of the trail in downtown Inverness.” He paused as I described my location and then broke the news to me. “You still have another mile to go.”
As I looked around in confusion, my eyes finally alighted on one of the Great Glen Way trail markers that had become so familiar to me that now I apparently just ignored them when they told me to continue on the trail.
Gathering my things, I set off again, so weary, but using my walking sticks to set a sort of rhythm for myself. One two, one two, one two, click clack, click clack, click clack.
I met John at one of the many bridges in Inverness, the two of us colliding in the middle. It was the sweetest moment, second only to arriving at the marker at the end of the trail.
The marker for the end (or start) of the Great Glen Way is erected outside the Inverness Castle. Years ago, on our first trip to Scotland, John and I happened to eat lunch right across the street from where we now stood, then we wandered, unknowingly, down a bit of the Great Glen Way to the River Ness. I could almost see younger Christine and John as I stood there, laughing over their first bite of haggis. We had no idea what the next years would hold for us. I had no idea that standing at that marker, some six years later, tears would run down my cheeks from my accomplishment. I had walked 75-miles across Scotland.
The marker for the Great Glen Way reads “Welcome to where it all ends (or begins…).” I thought back to the years where I could barely walk, struggling to move, laying on the couch wondering what this thing was that was slowly taking over me, and wishing I could simply have it extracted from my body. That I could be extracted from my body.
I felt time stretch. Years of working to feel better had preceded that moment of victory. There was no single day when I woke up and was cured. The only significant moment was when I realized that if I fought my body, I would lose. But each day I worked with my body, I felt stronger.
Before moving to Scotland, I had to say goodbye to Julia, a relationship that felt so significant I wasn’t sure how to end it. As I reflected on our sessions, I thought about Wormy. I now felt comfortable enough to tell Julia how close I’d come to not returning to their studio. I told them how sharing that vision of Wormy had made me — no pun intended — squirm. And I thought about Wormy as Julia’s hands were on me, as we worked through our last few sessions to say goodbye.
I could still picture that intrepid worm, climbing up the tree. But now the rotten bark had new growth. Leaves sprung from the branches. Wormy wasn’t the sole climber of the tree; other life buzzed inside the trunk. I was a collapsed volcano, broken and falling, but still a force.
People often ask me why I love Scotland so much. No one has ever been satisfied with my answer, but here’s the answer that most satisfies me. In Scotland, my body feels in correct proportion to all that is around me. When I’m out among the hills, standing and staring up at Ben Nevis for example, I am an appropriately small fraction of the larger world. And rather than diminishing me, it makes me feel solid. Complete. Strong. I feel a part of something, but also separate and distinct. My own.
Here I’m able to return to the simple rhythm of my body and listen to its soft voice, step after step, beat after beat, along the way home.
