A long walk: we’d been planning it for months, and talking about it for years. July 2024 saw our plans come to fruition. My friend Deirdre and I spent 8 days completing the Walk of Wisdom, a looping path that begins and ends at Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Over the course of 8 days, we walked 180 km / 112 miles, traversing surprisingly diverse landscapes of mountains and desert heaths, marshy fields and forests. We carried our packs with us and each day we followed the charming, usually straightforward, occasionally confusing instructions on the map we carried with us, collecting pilgrim rings at occasional stops.

Each day as we walked, I became more familiar with the plants, grasses, animals, and insects of these landscapes. I quickly learned to recognize stinging nettle and its nearby antidote, broadleaf plantain. So many villagers grew glorious bushes of viburnum, big enough to look like pillows. We encountered cows and sheep and goats, ostrich and tiny horses.

We followed paths alongside canals, between fields and farmlands, and winding through forests. We walked by windmills and used our own power to ferry ourselves across a pond. We learned to inhabit time in a new way, when the only task for the day is to walk. I learned that walking 10 miles is not very difficult, but that after mile 11 or 12, each mile gets significantly more difficult. Late in each day, I looked for soft paths, in grasses or wooded areas, to lessen the impact on my feet. Concrete and asphalt are cruel. Most of our days were sunny and warm, though we walked many miles in the rain in the last days of our journey.

My overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude, for the gift of time to be slow and walk this path with a dear friend, and for the gift of health, to see what my body is capable of at the age of 50. Surely some kind of art will come from this experience but for now I am basking in the memories of a milestone accomplishment, looking forward to when I can once again lace up my shoes, hoist the pack on my back, and continue on the path.