Day 7 - Combe Martin to Ilfracombe: 14.03 km

This has been one hell of a day and not because it physically broke me. This was one of those strange days where the vibes were simply... off. You know the kind. Nothing catastrophic happens but your spirit keeps snagging on invisible branches and no amount of walking lets you shake it loose. People say "walk it off" as though emotional static obeys the same rules as leg cramps. Sometimes your body moves forward and your brain lingers three hills behind, staring dramatically into the middle distance like it is auditioning for an indie film. Originally today was supposed to be a 24 kilometre march to Woolacombe followed by a bus or taxi ride back to Ilfracombe because there is nowhere sensible to stay on this section. Which translates into one of those trail days where optimism writes checks your body absolutely cannot cash. After yesterday, when my knees staged a labor strike so aggressive I was halfway to imagining a helicopter extraction off the cliffs, I looked at Ken and said there was absolutely no way in hell I was doing twenty four kilometres.I regret nothing.

Because of that decision I got to sleep in, enjoy a leisurely cooked breakfast and head out at 10:30 for around four hours of civilized walking. There is something deeply rebellious about listening to your body. Modern life keeps trying to convince us every moment should become content, productivity or achievement. Meanwhile every pilgrim, monk and wandering weirdo understands something we forgot. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is sit down and order another cup of tea. Combe Martin, by the way, recently stood in for California in the film The Roses. Personally I do not see it.  What Combe Martin does have is the Pack O Cards, a gloriously rowdy pub built in 1690 and designed around a deck of cards. Four floors, thirteen rooms, fifty two windows. There are lovely cafés and absurdly beautiful ocean views everywhere. It would have been nice to arrive before 6 p.m. and not in a semi feral state to enjoy them properly.

 

The walk itself was fairly uneventful. A little road, a little path, some climbing followed by a decent stroll into Ilfracombe where you are greeted by Damien Hirst’s Verity. A giant pregnant Lady Justice stands over the harbour holding a sword aloft in triumph while the other half of her body has been peeled back to reveal a fetus in anatomical detail.  I have absolutely no idea what Damien was going for here. Maybe justice. Maybe truth. Maybe unresolved mother issues. My first thought was, "This seems like an oddly specific thing to put here of all places." My second was, “Dude who exactly are you processing things about?" 

There was also supposed to be a nice tea shop about an hour before Ilfracombe but I am beginning to think God does not want me to have my Devon cream tea experience. Every tea shop so far has been closed. Every single one.  I came to Devon for tea and scones and instead I am being emotionally waterboarded by CLOSED signs.

Highlight of the day was Ken dropping his million dollar carbon fibre trekking poles over a seawall into a ravine and immediately taking off downhill like a man whose pension plan had become sentient and escaped. Full panic mode. Followed by Ken putting his shoes outside our room window to air out, only for them to tumble off the ledge onto the roof below, nearly taking out a nesting seagull. Somewhere that bird is telling a very traumatic story tonight. I will not be selecting Ken as my Everest climbing partner based on current evidence. Ilfracombe itself feels like the aftermath of a rough night out. I remember being here ten years ago and the place had a pulse. Now Brexit and an economy held together with tape and prayer seem written into the streets. Shuttered shops. Empty cafés. Hotels and BnBs with For Sale signs hanging around like abandoned Tinder profiles. There is a beer and cider festival happening in the park tonight though, which feels very British. Equal chance of a beautiful community gathering or absolute carnage. Somewhere between wholesome village fête and police paperwork. I may or may not investigate.

It felt heavy today. ” The Late Show ended and while I haven’t sat down to watch it in years, I remember the David Letterman era and those early Stephen Colbert years. I remember the wit, the irreverence, the art of looking power in the eye and saying, “Actually… no.” Knowing it ended because Colbert stood up to a bully filled me with a strange cocktail of emotions:  pride with a side of grief. Because I know, in my own much smaller way, the cost of speaking truth to power. I am nowhere near that influential. I don’t command audiences or shape headlines. But I know the double bind. I know that maddening gospel paradox where honesty gets praised in theory and punished in practice. Prophets really had the worst PR strategy imaginable. Even Jesus looked at systems of power and said, this isn’t it, and somehow people still chose empire. Humanity stays committed to the bit.

And I’ve felt sadness watching the women’s Camino community begin to mirror the worst parts of American politics. Somewhere along the way, difference stopped feeling welcomed and started feeling suspicious. I shared my journeys there not for likes or influence, but as a tiny signal fire to anyone who wasn’t white, straight, or conservative. Just a quiet way of saying: hey, if you feel like the odd one out, you’re not alone. There’s another one of us here. And yes, I’m angry that this can be seen as disruptive. But I also understand why. Difference unsettles power.  Because difference cracks open imagination. It whispers dangerous possibilities: what if another world exists? What if it’s kinder? What if liberation is bigger than we were told? Feminist readings of the New Testament understand this deeply. The women around Jesus were never threatening because they were loud. They were threatening because they testified to another way of being. I thought a lot today about Stephen Colbert and all the women and men who stood in truth before us. Those who paid much steeper prices than I ever have. And if this ache of alienation tells me anything, I suspect even the bravest among them went home some nights and wept. Not because they were weak. But because having a good heart in a hard world can feel like carrying water uphill.

Still… something is shifting.

We know the darkness of that shift. We see it every day. But darkness has always had one weakness: even the smallest light suddenly becomes impossible to ignore. 

I think the flicker is here.

And we are too.

A little bruised. A little tired. A little angry. But still rising.

Still burning with the glory of love.