Chapter 237: On Memories, Milestones and the Pilgrim Soul

“You know what a wine pairing has in common with giving birth…?”

“Mum, seriously?!”

“...You don’t know what you are getting and it’s always a lovely surprise.”

My husband Xavier raised an eyebrow. “Or a disappointment,” he observed drily, having ordered his own carafe, ever the cynic to my glass half full.  As they sing in Barnum, “you wonder how we made it down the aisle…”  I assured the kids he really was joking.

Anyway, there we were at Mallow last night, an outstanding vegan restaurant by Borough Market, which we had stumbled across by accident at Christmas with sailing friends. We had returned by special request to mark my daughter’s 18th birthday. She also shares her birthday with her father, a neat trick I’m particularly proud of, so we were there to celebrate the Gemini twins. Another circus act, obviously.

We were savouring their Market Menu upstairs in the Floret dining room, which felt right somehow, a little removed from the world, looking out. Gentle, nurturing, unhurried, mellow. As the Saturday evening darkened around us, the lights came up in Southwark Cathedral opposite, illuminating the stained glass in deep colour. We all clocked it together. Something quietly sacred in the middle of a special family night out.

It has been quite a week for milestones.

Writing the blog has picked up again, as I go with the flow, and this week it hit 350,000 hits. Still wondering who reads it. Still publishing with all the wobbly confidence of my early forays on the globe at National Circus. It does not get any easier, exactly, but it does seem to have its own momentum, something that propels me on when I might otherwise stop.

The readers it has gathered along the way, from all over the globe, are a constant source of wonder. As a languages teacher, that means the world to me. It also feels rather apt, because this whole circus journey was kickstarted by a trip to the National Circus on a taster afternoon with a dozen girlfriends of all nationalities, on what happened to be International Women's Day in 2014, while the BBC World Service was there filming (Chapter 1 - click here). Talk about synchronicity.

The other day, watching Rivals on television, I was reminded of the Yeats line, “but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,” and it has been rattling around my head ever since. Or one woman. Perhaps that is what birthdays, marriages, motherhood, friendship and old family jokes are really marking. The pilgrim soul in each of us, still travelling.

And so pilgrimages have been on my mind. A zeitgeist, perhaps. Last week, invigilating an exam, I watched one boy give up the holy ghost over a blank paper. The last question asked why people go on pilgrimages. Did he know what a pilgrimage was? No, Miss, he replied despondently. How to explain that in a whisper, without giving the game away? I did my best. It stayed with me afterwards.

El Camino to Santiago has been calling for years. Last year one of my adult students sent me a virtual postcard when she arrived there after I taught about it, which settled matters. One day. One of my sisters and I have been talking about it, and daydreaming about paradors en route, in the wake of Mum's death. Maybe next year, which is a special Jubilee year.

Then yesterday at ParkRun, volunteering as a Park Walker, I had to pick up my pace to keep up with a grandmother called Ann, which was also my mum’s name. She was being met at the end by her granddaughter, Lucy. She has been doing ParkRun since the early Bushey Park days and is planning to reach her 350th milestone this month. It strikes me how many people I have met along the way who took up ParkRun because they had lost someone or something. The secular pilgrimage, it turns out, is everywhere. It felt like a sign.

And then another thought popped into my head. The London ClownFest is running at Jacksons Lane, and on Monday evening Riss Obolensky brings a work in progress, Stinky Little Pilgrim. “Part reckoning, part ritual, part prayer. An award-winning clown with a tent, walking around Jacksons Lane, asking where the nearest exit is. Get lost. Get found. Get lost again. Call your mum,” the blurb reads.

I used to call mine every day when I could. Maybe that is the gap writing is picking up to fill recently.

And then I noticed that Lamorna Ash had liked Riss's post. I read her book "Don't Forget We're Here Forever" in one go last Easter when it came out, an exploration of why a new generation is turning back toward faith in an age of uncertainty. There is a frequency there, a wavelength, a vibration. Sometimes, after losing someone, finding the faith to carry on the journey can create its own new connections.

The pilgrimage takes many forms. A Saturday morning ParkRun. A vegan restaurant by Borough Market where Southwark Cathedral lights up at dusk. A clown with a tent and an OS map that provides no answers. A blog that keeps moving forward even when you are not entirely sure where it is going.

We walk. We question. We put ourselves out there. Occasionally, we hide back under the duvet until the embarrassment passes.

It is a funny old world, as Dad used to say.

And perhaps that is why we keep walking.

Riss Obolensky's "Stinky Little Pilgrim" is a work in progress, part of London Clown Fest, and showing tomorrow night (Monday 8th June) at Jacksons Lane. Click here for tickets. 

Photo credit: Pilgrims in stained glass window of Canterbury Cathedral taken by Peter Barritt as featured in Guardian article (click here)