Footsteps & Thoughts: A Writer’s Journey on the Via Francigena
Walking The Via Francigena
At the beginning of October, while packing to walk a section of the Via Francigena, I looked at my notebook and decided to leave it behind. As a compulsive note-taker this felt like a risky decision. I wanted to experience being in the moment, not walking along, pen in hand, jotting down thoughts and impressions. However, as many pilgrims discover, the trail had other ideas.
The Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome, is walked by thousands of pilgrims each year, both spiritual and secular, all seeking adventure, discovery and renewal. While walking the trail for two weeks in the middle of a rainy Italian autumn, I met two pilgrims who were both committed to writing while on the trail. Pelle Rosdahl – a pastor and writer from Sweden, was studying creative writing – and Jennifer Andrewes – a writer from New Zealand, was posting 500 word updates every day to her followers. When we got back to civilisation, we discussed their motivation to keep writing on the trail.
Writing on the Via Francigena
Jennifer Andrewes is no stranger to a camino and The Via Francigena is her third long-distance walk. She is walking the entire route, a 2000km no mean feat, documenting her journey on a subscriber-only Facebook group. She writes a 500 word post every day and favours a mix of ‘facts, feels and conversations,’ to entertain her followers. During the day she takes photos of moments that capture her imagination, and after the day’s long walk, writes her daily post. An event, thought, or meeting will provide her first sentence, and once she gets that on the page, the rest of her word count follows.
Her inspiration comes from a mixture of encounters and conversations. She also favours ‘zone out time’ – the meditative state that comes from walking long-distances. This extra time to dream is one of the many gifts that come from being a pilgrim.
The Philosophical Stage or ‘The Inner Camino’
Pelle Rosdahl, a pastor as well as a writer, referred to the idea of an ‘outer and inner camino’. At the beginning of the walk, the outer Camino takes precedence, the day to day problem-solving and the physical and psychological challenges. Once this becomes routine, ‘layers are shed,’ ready for the inner camino. Jennifer also experienced this, saying her long camino divided itself into three stages: the mental, physical and lastly, the philosophical. This stage takes us deeper, to the meaning behind the walk, a more thoughtful and spiritual place where inspiration can be found. For Pelle, his inner and outer journey also mirrored his character’s journey in his Work In Progress, the ‘inner camino’ driving the narrative arc of his novel.
Places of Imagination
The places we pass through and people we meet feed this imaginative inner camino. While visiting renaissance churches it is easy to envisage the life of sickly Saint Cristina of Bolsena, lying on her wooden deathbed. Or, after sleeping in the echoing Convento Santa Maria del Giglio, you can imagine the life of a nun researching in a quiet late-night library, looking out over the cloisters.
Journaling on the Camino
For Pelle, parts of both the outer and inner camino might have been missed if he hadn’t kept a journal. He takes incessant notes on his phone, his wife gently guiding him away from potholes. His notes from the trail contain a mixture of thoughts, feelings, and observations. He sees making notes on the camino as being an act of receiving; being open to all information.
He said, ‘Writing a journal on the camino is a way to free up space by clearing things out. Then you are ready to receive.’ After the walk, the processing happens, creatively exploring the meaning behind what you have experienced.
Jennifer writes to inspire and inform others, as well as to understand her own journey. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease four years ago and writes about managing her illness on the trail and how long-distance walking lessens her symptoms. Her followers include people who are inspired by her adventures and dream about walking themselves. Her regular blog posts share practical information, funny stories and meaningful encounters.
“Writing on the trail helps me to record memories and thoughts as well as changes in thought processes. When you write things down you can read them back and make new connections, processing and knitting things together in your brain.”
Writing on the Camino
As I walked, a combination of talking to these other writers, and the great sleep I was getting on Italy’s comfy mattresses, (seriously, even in the cheapest Ostellos), made me revise my decision to not take notes. I was beginning to want to write about the walk. I had no notebook, but I began to write on my phone, taking a leaf out of Pelles' digital book.
Pilgrim lore tells us that ‘The camino always provides.’ This even includes notebooks for writers as Jennifer discovered when she found one waiting for her, a pen placed by its side, on the table by her hostel bunk. Camino moments like these were already passing me by, and without a reason to write them down I was forgetting them.
Details of this world seem important and I do enjoy the strange compulsion I have to record them. The dark wooden heft of that wardrobe with its edges that looked like curved gargoyles, the flat that reminded me of my grandmother, giving me a glimpse into the life of an elderly Italian woman living in a misty mountain town. That same mist settling like memory into the floor of the valley, a different texture each time. All those yellow orchids and mushrooms, everywhere, in ragged rings, looking like houses for fairy people. An Australian woman asking me who the Gods in the land were in Wales, me admitting that I didn’t know. All our odd, tiny, individual experiences. I want to keep them. They feel precious to me.
After the Camino
When we return to our day to day lives we can continue to reflect. Walking a camino fuelled imagination by offering new perspectives, ideas, rhythms, and thoughts. All the thousands of people who walked this same way throughout the years influenced us, just as we followed in their footsteps. We experienced the same needs as we stepped forward and backward in time, continuing our endless human search for food, water, toilet, and sleep. Our identity as pilgrims gained us access to the secret places, from catacombs to underpasses, convents to roadsides. It gave us a feeling of being located sideways to day to day life, placed out of time, literally on a different pathway. The bonds of modern life loosened and imaginative gaps appeared.
For writers, myself included, we were able to notice and record everything we see, processing these new perspectives and ways of being. All the vivid details of daily life seemed new and saturated with meaning. Each new town or city showed us its secrets. Who drank their coffee in the dirty morning light at the bar opposite the petrol station? What nuances of weather ran through an Italian autumn? How many types of fog fell through the trees when we were outside for eight hours of the day?
As imaginative creatures we continue to write and walk, both on the path and on the page, with company, along the way. Even though we are all now back in our day-to-day lives, we bring the journey with us. The journey of a pilgrim, even a two-week one, placed us in an ever moving stream of new perspectives, ideas, rhythms, and reflections. For writers, words can’t help but follow.
Alexia Wdowski lives in a small town by the sea, has an MA in Creative Writing and writes about outsiders, risk takers, wilderness, and the surreal qualities of daily life. Her work will be featured in Hillfire Vol. 4.