Distance: 21.1 miles (307.1 total)
Total ascent: 469ft (21,412 total)
Time: 7hrs 48mins
Tomorrow: Irvine to Largs (est 22.3 miles)
Staring at an enormous statue of a mouse in Alloway, I found myself remembering a wedding rehearsal I'd taken when I was at All Saints in Edmonton. As with many of the weddings I took then, both the bride and groom were from Nigerian families. During the rehearsal I noticed that the best man kept nudging the groom and whispering something to him and that the groom just kept shaking his head. Finally the best man broke silence and very gently and very patiently told me that I wasn't pronouncing the groom's name correctly. I was cross with myself for my mispronunciation, but these things can happen sometimes. What I was most upset by was the fact that the groom had not felt that he could correct me. I was the figure of power in all sorts of different ways; mine was the dominant voice and if that's how I was going to pronounce his name then that's just how the world turns.
This remembrance in an Alloway park was stirred because the mouse statue was a celebration of Rabbie Burns' beautiful poem, 'Ode to a Mouse' (Robert Burns Poem -"To a Mouse"). Of course, Burns is celebrated not just for his poetic vision and profound humanity, but because he wrote the words that his people spoke. He took the speech, the thoughts, the lives of his people and turned them into literature. He gave a voice to those whose voices were rarely heard.
What is our true voice? We adopt all sorts of different 'voices' during our lifetimes. Our family background gives us a certain voice in terms of our vocabulary (I'm delighted that scunner, wheesht and eejit are part of my voice!), but it can also instill in us a sense of things that cannot be said, things that mustn't be talked about. At school and college we might 'try on' different voices. I went to the same school as Jamie Oliver and like him we all talked as if we'd been born within earshot of Bow Bells, even though most of us were growing up in comfortable Essex commuter belt villages. In our professional lives and in all sorts of other contexts, we learn ways of speaking and ways of not speaking and thinking. But where in all this do we find our true voice? Which patterns of speech and thought are authentically ours?
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| Arran on a blue day |
Today should have been such a simple and enjoyable day's walking. The first few miles took me downhill along country roads from Maybole to Ayr. When I reached the beach at Ayr all I had to do was hook a right and keep going along coastal paths and beaches until I reached Irvine. Weatherwise it was one of the best days of the pilgrimage so far, and for most of the day my beloved Isle of Arran was never far from sight. It should have been such a lovely day's walking but unfortunately The Noonday Demon (A Pilgrim's Cairn: The Noonday Demon calls me Billy) wasn't willing to wait until noon. Within an hour of setting out, all sorts of angry thoughts started bubbling; anger at myself, anger at others. It all rather took me by surprise. The most insidious voice was the one that whispered, "You know that even if you get to Iona, nothing will have changed." At several points the desire to chuck it in was bafflingly intense: I've done most of the hard bits. I know that change is happening.
For most of the past week I've shared in saying Afternoon Prayer with my friend Paul. We video call and I hold the phone up so that he can see the same view that I can as we pray together. Today, before we turned to our prayers he remarked that this leg must be really easy going after yesterday's twenty-seven miles. I hesitated. There was a great deal of temptation to agree and to point out how lovely and blue the sky was, and how long and empty the beach was. However I decided to tell my friend the truth, that in fact today was being weirdly difficult. After I'd spoken to him in my true voice, things began to feel so much better.
The lowest moment came when my phone pinged while I was walking through Ayr. At once I felt rather uplifted that one of my friends was sending me a message. In fact, it was an advert from a well-known pizza delivery company, telling me about the special offer they had on for Valentine's Day. That was so many different kinds of unhelpful.
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Thanksgiving: for the people who help us to speak in our true voice.
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