Day 13. Diamonds.

Monday, 26 October 2015. 23.00

I slept under a tree. Yesterday, when it started turning dark at six, I had tried the door of the small church that had suddenly popped up next to the sandy road. The only other sign of civilization was a big old farmhouse a bit further down the road. The church was closed, like most churches these days, but behind the garden with old olive trees surrounding it there was a slope and at the bottom of it, completely out of sight and with a beautiful view over the fields, there was a big old oak tree with branches bending down all the way to the ground. 

In the morning on Sunday I was surprised that it seemed to be light so early. I had slept in a shed smelling of oil, the calendar on the wall read 2002. When I checked my phone it said 8.07 but my iPad said 7.07. I wondered if they had changed the clocks. Sunlight saving time. I was out of time all day, a sunny day, a day in which everything seemed to go wrong. My Internet wasn´t working properly anymore, my iPad had stopped switching off automatically when I closed it. I dropped my water bottle and lost half a liter of water. My right arm was hurting more than ever. When I checked my route to find La Pera, the village where the friend of a friend lived and where I was going to be hosted today, I discovered that it was quite far away from where my friend had told me his friend lived, in Saus. I had already planned my route through Saus and I couldn´t afford to make a big detour and cancelled the visit. 

But there was sun and my feet were working well and at the end of the day I found the oak tree and got the confirmation the days would indeed from now on end already at six and even earlier every day I would move up further North.

I usually walk until it gets dark, then find a place to sleep, set up my camp, eat something and then crawl into my sleeping bag. Early most days, even earlier now. Eight thirty. I started reading Walter Benjamin´s "The Metaphysics of Youth" from his Selected Writings Volume 1 and was joined by a small prayer mantis, apparently attracted by the light of my iPad. I didn´t get far. The days are exhausting and when I am surrounded by the dark, sleep calls. It was silent. I didn´t expect any big animals here. I slept well.

In the mornings I am usually slow. Packing up, finding breakfast. It was easy today, I had spotted a pomegranate tree just behind my oak tree yesterday. I sat in the grass overlooking the fields. A grey sky. There were still loads of chestnust and walnuts, they had weighed heavy on my back but I never know if there will be shops in the small villages I sometimes pass through. Often they are closed, abandoned. And all this free food is a big luxury. 

There were two e-mails from Jorda and Jackson, two of the people I had spent time with in Girona. New friends. I thought about all the people who get connected to the walk, all the people I walk with. People I meet on the road but also old friends that are in my mind, people who walked for real or virtually with me on other walks, some people I only know through Facebook.

I always need to gain courage in the morning to start. The places I find for the night turn into a temporary home and it is nice to spend some time there in the morning, to stay for a little bit longer before the leaving starts again. But once I am on t he road I don´t look back. Once I start walking there is only the walking.

I thought some music would help to move me forwards and I lifted my bag on my back, climbed the earthen wall, passed the church, the old farmhouse and had a spring feeling for just a moment, probably because all the fields were covered in white flowers. I turned around and saw the blue mountains in the far distance, the beautiful landscape, a random song was coming through my headphones, Paul Bley´s "Open, to love." and I thought "Fuck, I am here."

Walking though woods, along winding roads. Taking a cold bath in a small pool. Filling my water bottle with water from a stream. Picking more pomegranates. Farmers passed me on tractors and they all looked me in the eye and greeted me. I didn´t mind when it started raining. A friend had borrowed me his rain poncho and it worked well. And the music was matching again. Faure´s Requiem, directed by Philip Herreweghe. I passed Llampaies, sat in a busstop, listened to the Barcelona composer Mompou, a light song, I checked the title and it said "Heugel et Cie. Paris". Yes, Paris ..... I sometimes forget that that is where I´m heading and I better forget now and then because it is far. But it is getting closer every day.

I was happy when I found a cafe in a small village. It was a great place, it seemed like it hadn´t changed in ages, the head of a big boar was hanging on the wall. Locals came in to drink coffee with rum, buy cigarettes and magazines, play the pinball machine that made cheery sounds. I fixed my Internet, was tempted to ask for some rum in my coffee as well but stuck to warm milk. I sat and watched. When I left it was already 3 ´o clock.

I walked through Saus, the village where my friend´s friend didn´t live. It turned out to be a magic place, the home of a Barcelona born artist, Alfredo Palermo, who had build himself a big museum with a garden and a narrow street with walls filled with his work. I sat on the bench outside the locked porched for a bit and then wandered through the ancient streets of the village. The 12th century fortified church in the middle was magnificent. Locked, of course. I was grateful my friend had misdirected me. Sometimes the best things come out of things that seem to be a mistake.

I walked on, along a railroad, through a forest. It started to rain, to rain more and just when I was moving through a tunnel to get to the other side of the railroad the sky opened. The road turned into a river and I could barely keep my feet dry. It was getting dark already, I was hoping for a ruin or an unlocked shed somewhere in the next half hour.

The shelters had been there every day, unexpected, crazy places sometimes but always quite comfortable. Today, when I needed it most, there was nothing but dark, wet forest. I aimed for the next village, Sant Mori, often there are abandoned houses close to a village but when I walked out of the forest and saw the lights and the beautifully lit buildings I realised chances would be small there. It looked posh. I checked out a big barn I saw in the far distance but there were lights and I heard lots of sheep and where there are sheep, there are dogs.

There was a playground at the border of the village. I sat on a bench and ate and waited. I checked online if there was any cheap accomodation in the town. I didn´t feel like wandering around there, asking, having to say no to expensive rates. The rain had stopped and I considered going back into the dark woods to put up my tent. Best option probably.

I would have done it, but fortunately I gave the village a try. Maybe there was a public park with a dark corner, a garden with a garden house. A niche in the city wall.

There wasn´t any of those but at the other end of the empty village, I found an old abandoned house. There were small stairs going into the wild garden and the apartment in the basement was completely empty. Stone walls, vaulted ceilings. A big room and two smaller rooms, dusty, but cleared out apart from a few chairs. It didn´t show any traces of building activities. Nobody would disturb me here.

I chose the room farthest away from the door, I closed the old wooden window shutters. Even if light would leak out, probably nobody would see it, I could only see a big field from the window, but it is always good to be sure.

So that is where I am now. Seated on a chair. Spiderwebs sticking to my back and probably in my hair. My raincoat and shoes drying in a corner, my inflatable bed in the other corner. I will make sure I´m out when the sun comes up, just to make sure. And who knows, maybe I will even find a cafe in town to eat breakfast. And if not, there are always chestnuts and wallnuts and pomegranates. And somewhere in my backpack there is a tin of sardines still and an apple. And of course there is always a small supply of chocolate. No walking without chocolate. 

The only animals tonight are beetles. But they are huge and black. They walk slowly on the walls and the floor. I guess this is their home more than it is mine.

They make me think of Jackson again, about evolution, how insects are so much better at surviving than most animals. And I am thinking about how earlier today I thought of Jorda, when I woke up under an oak tree and remembered his project where he was sleeping next to old trees, just like I had thought about his goat video the day before, when I had to climb a wall, using a big tree that had fallen down and felt uncomfortable at first, afraid I would fall but then I concentrated, thought of the goats, tried to feel at ease in my body, feel the borders of it, my new weight with the backpack on my back, I found my balance and climbed up like an animal.

People make me look at things in a new way, teach me new things. The road is the best school

possible.