Balance

Blog 7.

I think this journey may be all about finding some sort of balance in all the ups and downs.

The balance between spending time alone and spending time with others.

The balance between fatigue and feeling on top of the world.

The balance between beautiful unspoilt scenery and trash-filled rivers and byways.

Shady woods and baking hot streets.

Steep climbs and never-ending straight roads.

Mountains and ocean.

Clean and dirty.

Homesick and never wanting it to end.

Today was my best day on Shikoku so far. I finally came to myself, connecting with the person I thought I would be here. I thought it would be instant, but it took over 2 weeks to get to this point. To find my rhythm and my Self.

I even thought of going back to the start and beginning all over again. I have been doing it all wrong. Not using the time at the temples wisely, being too distracted by things, not meditating or praying effectively. But now, the Disneyworld/treasure hunt feeling of the huge cluster of temples in Tokushima prefecture is nicely giving way to the more spaced out temples in Kochi prefecture. When you have not been in a temple for a couple of days, you miss the aroma of the incense, the murmur of the heart sutra, the vibrations of the temple bell.

I had a couple of days feeling very „off“. Hot and sweaty and exhausted, dashing to get ready to meet friends of a friend for an unforgettably lovely evening at a family home, feeling welcome, but just so tired. Not able to process it all, losing even more sleep, rushing. No time to take everything in. No time to chill. Then a day ill, and so disappointed that I could not complete my walking goal, having to take a train most of the way to my next place of rest. I arrived hours earlier than planned.

The guesthouse I recuperated at was a kind of turning point for me and I was the only guest. I could plan and think. The landlady spoiled me rotten. I had a normal room in a normal house. She had a cat. I helped her make the bed. She gave me honey and lemon from her garden.

I sat in the deep bath tub, up to my neck, and observed something while breathing. Inhaling, your ribcage floats right up to the surface, exhaling, you sink back down. Of course, but try it, deliberately. In Japan.

Another guest arrives around 5.30 and comes into my bedroom to eat with me at my coffee table. Where’s he supposed to sleep if I’m in the only room? Oh well. Better cover up my personal things with a towel. Aha! It‘s Matsu, the guy I sat next to at dinner in yesterday‘s inn. How nice to see him. She has put him somewhere upstairs, phew! With our translation apps we get quite far and arrange to walk the next day together, for, by coincidence, we are even staying at the same hotel in the next city.

Typically, the dinner at a pilgrim inn with other exhausted „henros“ is short and sweet. Aside from comparing how red and sunburned our hands are, the conversation is like this: Where are you from? Which bit of the henro are you doing this year? (What all of it?!) Where are you staying tomorrow? See you at breakfast. Good night.

Then you brush your teeth in the communal bathroom next to someone taking out their contact lenses and call it a day. You are relieved to be in your room alone.

Then there’s the welcome balance provided by the occasional business hotel: your own bathroom, no communal meals. You are free. Walking the henro brings the contrast of the gentle commeradie at an inn and the joy when you get to be private again. Yet all of one or all of the other would mean missing out. When I‘m anonymous at a hotel, I miss the pilgrims, however little we talk, and vice versa.

I enjoy a good day‘s walk with Matsu, he is a nurse from the Tokyo area. Bless him, he must have slowed down for me. There appears to be a different daily goal for men and women. I thought 25 km would be my average distance, but the first two weeks it was less than 20 km. (Albeit with ascents the equivalent of 143 flights of stairs, according to the app). This third week is seeing me inch up to an average of 22 km or 23 km, so I am satisfied with the improvement. But Matsu is a man and 30 km is nothing to him. We banter in pidgin English and Japanese, and he treats me to a henro manju speciality cake on the way.

Are your feet ok, I ask? No pain, no pain, he replies in English. (So he remembers some English after all!)

Marion like Manju cake? Yes, I like, thank you.

Matsu very very like anime and manga. We laugh.

We stop at a Seven Eleven for coffee and I take off my fleece and buy some safety pins to keep up the sleeves of my henro jacket, as it‘s too hot for sleeves. I pin the left arm, and he pins the right, and this one act of help is so intimate, it really touches me.

We say goodbye at the hotel and don‘t arrange to walk the next day. „My pace, my pace.“ he says, and we both get it.

This morning my youth sports hostel/hotel is so kind as to provide a shuttle back to the trail. 2 other women henro get on the bus. My, one of them is only my former roommate, the one with the snore! I am delighted to see her again, it’s been well over a week. At the temple, while meeting an American cyclist henro, a taxi pulls up and none other than Matsu gets out. Long time no see. It‘s like a little reunion. Then we all do our thing, or not, at the temple and move on at our own pace.

A few kilometres into the day, I stop and say hi to a woman buying tomatoes at a country tomato stand. She soon drives past me and opens the window to say „Ganbatte kudasai“ to encourage me. Half an hour later she is back again, on a moped this time, and stops in front of me to hand me a bag of „osettai“ goodies, a cool bottle of green tea and some sweets and tissues. Arigato, kind lady.

The whole day goes in flow. I arrive at the coast again, feeling a welcome breeze finally and also feeling like I could go that further 5 km, for today, for the first time, there really has been „no pain, no pain“ at all. I actually thanked my legs and feet.

Sayonara for now xx