The Long Walk Home

Slowly, ever so slowly, the writer in me stirs. Shaking off the blanket fort she has been hunkered down in for the summer season. Emerging blinking into the light. Slowly she attempts to make sense of her surroundings again. Change has swirled through the air, the routine has shifted again and this new world seems to offer more light, more space, more openness in which to begin the dance again. Dust spots move through dappled sunlight coming through the windows and ever so gently she begins to move. 

I’ve been sitting in IKEA cafe all week calling forth the writer from her cave in the back of my mind. Remembering she is needed to process all that is going on around me. These last two weeks I have felt my body begin to unwind, to start to breathe deeply again, unfurling from the tightly held holding on I’ve done for the last 9 months, and the last month in particular. Fears of school not working out, fears that we would be alone in this country with nothing for the boys to be part of, irrational fears and rational fears held my body tense. I felt I had to hold onto all the parts all the time. These last two weeks have been about letting go. I can let the pieces fall to the ground, the roof will not collapse. I can let my arms drop, my shoulders fall, I can breathe deep and stop holding on, stop clenching my jaw tight. I can unfurl again. 

I am not in control. I can let go. I am not in control. I cannot hold all things together to make them be ok. Life does not work like this. I cannot stop the bad things happening. I am not in control. Oliver Burkeman and his excellent 4000 weeks book reminds me that I am finite and small. Ecclesiastes reminds me that everything is vapour, the good, the bad, and therefore I live and dwell in this time, this present, not the past or the future, but now. I cannot control life and it’s outcomes. I am reminded that I believe less in a divine storyteller and more in a divine companion. Someone else is with me, not making all the pieces fit or work out in the ways I want, but here with me, helping me breathe, reminding me that I stand loved in this place. I am loved. I am here. I am not in control. 

I think about community and the many different facets it has. I stare at my dream of local community, being able to find a church that fits, people to hang out with, a school for the boys and space, land and outdoors all in one place. I realise that vision is just one expression of community. Community can be found in many forms, local can mean many things and maybe in this season we are finding a web of community that extends across this land, a web which has touch points in places near the boys school, near Corrymeela, near our actual house, near other places yet to be discovered. Oliver again helps my brain remember that to do the things we want to do we have to sacrifice other things because we cannot have it all or do it all. We sacrificed a deep sense of local community to come over here. But we can find other ways to express community, we can accept that travel is part of the web, we can see the good in this life rather than wish we had everything and the moon on a stick (there’s an old 90s comedy reference for you…points if you know where it comes from..). 

I am excited about the next step into finding land to be nourished on and to nourish others from. I am excited about the dream of family together working alongside each other. I am so glad we came across to hang out with my sister in law, nephew and father in law. I would not change that for the world. I am excited about this carving life together, the sense of team we have. 

I’m also over excited because I have swam in the sea everyday this week and my nervous system seems excessively happy as a result. It turns out all those people who rave about it so much are right. I kind of wish they weren’t, but they are. It’s crazy how joy filling getting in cold water each morning is. This morning doing it with a new friend almost made my endorphin levels go over board, connection, being outdoors, cold water and a cuppa in the van after. My cup runneth over.

In the midst of the joy I sense fear again. I don’t know what the future holds. This good feeling may disappear soon but I refuse to let foreboding joy rob me of this present. I am here.

Hello to now. 

9 months we have been here. 

9 months of life lived, half unsure of whether we are staying or going, easing into the awareness that we are here and here we will stay. 

9 months of living life with family, cups of tea, dinners, conversations, sharing the hard, the reason for finding ourselves here. 

9 months of trying to learn what is going on for our youngest, trying to regulate and breathe deep, trying to dance the family dynamics and help my eldest be seen in this storm. 

9 months of different seasons, dark dark winter, blustery spring, the green endless light summer. 

9 months of new outdoor places to explore, sand dunes, mountain streams, beaches, forest parks, play parks, mountains, lakes, coffee shops and more. 

9 months of a new way of parenting, slowly dropping demands, feeling our way into what healthy screen time looks for all of us, enchanted by minecraft, addicted to roblox, conversations, pulling back, despair, frustration, understanding, seeing the benefits. 

9 months of watching the affect change has had on us all, the explosions, the rebuilding, the rupture, the repair, the walking into a new way of being. 

9 months of seeing that broken hearts mend, that home can be found again, that the storms pass and blue skies appear, that the blue skies go and cloud appears, that the weather can be weathered. 

9 months of visitors, people cheering us on, offering love and care in these transitions. 

9 months of stops and starts, of the glue gun phase, the hama beed phase, the watching tv shows all day everyday phase, the remembering we all love reading phase, the slowly getting back into bedtimes which work phase, the 3d printer phase, the memorising the whole of the horrible histories phase. 

9 months we have been here. 

When I wrote in my journal that we’d been here 9 months I was caught back into the world of pregnancy. 9 months is what it takes to grow a new life and birth it into the world.  I feel like that’s what we’ve been doing in these last 9 months. We haven’t really started the new life yet in many ways, the baby is being nurtured and grown deep within us as we’ve lived in transition for most of this last year. We didn’t know we were going to stay when we came over, and so everything has felt somewhat temporary whilst we figured that out. Looking into the next couple of months we’ll be starting more permanent rhythms, the boys are going to a new school, we are hopefully moving house and settling down in this land. Those things feel massively like giving birth. We’ll hopefully find community to be part of, be able to use our land for hospitality in the ways we love, we’ll have breathing space and time to nurture this new life birthing in front of us. 

In the meantime we wait. As I reflect on pregnancy I’m reminded that I can do this waiting for new life thing. 10 years ago and 8 years ago my Augusts and Septembers were full of waiting, full of anticipation of a life I couldn’t imagine. I can do the processing fear, the excitement so closely linked to that fear. I can walk around with the weight of pregnancy in me, leaning into now before the world will change again. Before son1 was born I used my last two months of pregnancy to read books, watch Spooks and hang out with my NCT group all in a similar stage of waiting. I prepared, washed baby clothes and tried to enjoy the peace before the storm. 

This summer feels similar. I don’t know how school will go for the boys, I don’t know how moving will go, whether we will find anyone to be friends with and share more of our lives with, I long for some kind of faith community and look forward to slowly finding people to eat meals with and talk about the presence of the divine. I hope for the future, I fear the future if none of those things materialise.

I wrestle with God as I did back then, knowing I cannot trust this author of me to make everything ok, but knowing that I have always found their presence to be enough in the storms I have lived through in these last 44 years. I wrestle for the presence rather than the perfect outcomes I would like. I am desperate to know it will all be ok and I am fearful that it won’t. I wrestle for the presence of the One who made my mountain playground, the One who made me, the Ones who wrote their love all over this world, the One who whispers to me in the cool morning air, who holds me as I hold my boys, who offers love through arms and texts of friends, who shows up in books, music, tv shows and in the steady presence of a huge dry stone wall on my walks in the hills.  

9 months we’ve been here. When I was pregnant with son2 Romans 8 in The Message was my mantra and hope, it talks of birth pangs, of waiting for deliverance and views this waiting as an important part of this process to new life. 

“That is why waiting does not diminish us, anymore than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting… meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting God’s Spirit is right alongside us helping us along.” 

I long for this waiting to enlarge us, to bring life to us, to make our expectancy more joyful, to not diminish us. It can be tempting to think of our lives as diminished since leaving the abundance we had in Brighton, what I’m starting to realise is that as we live and breathe out in this land that there may well be more space here for us to live an enlarged life, which feels different from a full on life. Space for breathing, reflection and invitation for others into that space. All amazing things which I am hopeful this new birth will bring. Until then we wait with expectancy. We enjoy the now and we wrestle for the Presence holding us in the birth pains. 

When we first moved over to Northern Ireland, back in November, I sat and stared at the mountains from our bedroom window, I saw the contours, the gentle meandering slopes and the stark rock formations. I watched and I waited. Each morning brings a different perspective on these hills. Some days they are outlines in the haze, some days every detail is clear. Some days the mist rolls on top, clouds hide then dance away and reveal the paths and summits in the distance. Sometimes they disappear altogether and are tucked away whilst the rain falls. I looked at them for 2 months and as I did I heard their call.

I hadn’t climbed a mountain in so long. 

We had children, I had a husband whose health was pretty bad for 4 years, then covid hit. Holidays were just about getting outdoors however we could, no time or space to dedicate to climbing mountains or long walks. They were about time with friends, times to get away from day to day life, times of compromise so we could all have a vaguely good experience.

I hadn’t climbed a mountain in so long.

I stared, I wondered if I could remember how to climb steadily higher and higher again. I knew I could walk, I’d been doing that for 2-3 miles each day for a couple of years. But my back was sore, I haven’t been able to run for a few years, I wondered if I would be able to go up. 

January came with sunshine and clear days. Routines were slowly established, I began to stare at our maps, at our book of walks in the Mournes. I tried to figure out the best introduction, the Slieve that could be fitted into a few precious hours whilst the boys were with their Aunty one morning. I plucked up my courage and planned a route up Slieve Meelmore. It looked straightforward and a good start to stomping up hills again.

I clambered up on a bright sunny day, I gasped in awe at the mountains all around me, I felt the nervous feeling as I drove down empty roads to the starting point. I was stunned by the silence, the lack of other people, the crags and mountain streams. I puffed and panted my way to the top proud that I could remember how to navigate and breathe. My back felt sore but not devastatingly so. I went back down and stared at my Christmas present from the husbandface, a picture of seven Slieve’s supposedly over 700m (let’s ignore that later people realised that Meelmore was just under at 682m). Which one would be next?

After a couple of lower level walks on my days off Slieve Bearnagh was in my sights. It’s craggy top sticks out sharply on the sky line from our windows and kept calling to me. I took the husbandface this time, enjoying walking with him and having someone to keep me confident as I stared at the steep incline in front of me with no discernible path after we’d made it to the top of Hare’s Gap. I was glad of his company on the hairy descent as well.

Slieve Meelbeg was next on the list, this time I took my Dad along for the journey, deeply grateful to be able to mountain walk with him again. I still remember his advice when I was little and trying out mountain climbing, small steps at a time, you use less energy than huge steps. 

After I’d done three I was hooked on doing them all. July came with better weather and more time to dedicate to mountains. The addiction grew.  

I took my sister in law up Slieve Binnian, I’d love to do this one again when it wasn’t covered with mist and with more time. I think it’s my favourite because of the potential views and amazing tors at the top. Also it’s really easy to get to from the Carrick Little car park, which is becoming one of my most loved routes into the heart of the Mournes. 

I went up Slieve Commedagh on my own, determined to climb it despite the large amount of cloud on top. The Mourne Wall is perfect for being able to go up some of the mountains with confidence in clouds, I love walking by its steady presence, glad of the clarity as the fog descends. I would love to do this one again on a clear day.

Slieve Lamagan was climbed in honour of my birthday. Husbandface was super kind in indulging my desire to climb it (another steep, lack of path scramble) and then extend our walk down the other side into a valley at the bottom and then round for a swim in the Blue Lough. So pretty, so exhilarating. The climb was the clearest this month and the views were breathtaking.

It seemed only fitting to then climb Donard a few days later. Especially as that neatly fitted into doing Seven Slieves in Seven months. From January to July. I decided to go up from the Bloody Bridge river, knowing there would be way less people than the more popular Glen River path. Also I’ve been up the path from the Donard car park loads and wanted to see different landscape on the way up.

As I climbed I gazed in awe at my new friends, the paths I’d been on, the many more to explore, the lakes I couldn’t see but knew they were there, waiting. I was stunned by the joy, the delight in mountains on my doorstep. I look at them differently now. I look up each morning and say hello, I know I’ll be back, wandering different paths, seeing how the seasons carry on changing and shaping the views I see. I respect these hills, and I am starting to know them. They are now friends and I am looking forward to expanding our friendship over the years. 

As I walked I was struck by two thoughts. Firstly the line from U2’s Zoo Station played over and over in my head ‘I’m ready to say, I’m glad to be alive’. Mountains make me grin with happiness. I love being out walking for hours on end. I love the achievement, the views, the vastness, the joy. I love the clarity it brings, the hush to the noise of my head, I love the isolation, the feeling that these hills are my friends. I am glad to be alive in this space. I am so glad we moved here. I am not afraid of saying that anymore. I am so grateful that these mountains are on my doorstep.

Secondly I think I realised that these mountains may be the mountains I need in this season of life right now. The Lake District and the Buttermere Valley have always been my first love but I don’t feel the tug anymore to get there at all costs. I think I may have moved on to a new love. 

Buttermere was clearly very important in my 20s (read about it here) and then there were the wilderness years where I thought I had to find my way back there with my family. But now I think we are finding a way forward into different times. These new mountains are ours together. The boys adore their slopes and may come to love ascending their heights (also they may not) but they do find great joy here.

I do not have to persuade them of the wonder of mountain lakes and streams and they have their own favourite places in these hills. I can go to the heights on my own, or swim in lakes with them. Husbandface can join me when he wants and I can be alone when I want.

The big revelation of my walk yesterday day was that I think I would be happy even if you said I could never go to Buttermere again, now I have the Mournes. Life has moved forward, moved on and I am so glad of these new friends I have found, this joy in my heart and this light in my eyes.