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Emma Shepanek

Honors 345A
Frances McCue
November 6 2012
Pain, Pleasure, and Pilgrimage
This summer I walked five hundred miles. I walked for eight hours a day, every day, for
five weeks. Thats two hundred and eighty hours of walking. If one mile is equal to about two
thousand, two hundred and fifty steps, it took me one million, one hundred and twenty five
thousand steps to travel from Montreux, Switzerland to St. Peters Basilica in Rome. Each and
every one of those one million, one hundred and twenty five thousand steps was taken with my
own two feet: five hundred sixty-two thousand, five hundred with my right foot and five hundred
sixty-two thousand, five hundred with my left foot.
It is hard to describe those one million, one hundred and twenty five thousand steps. The
places those steps took me were too diverse to sum up and describing the varying landscapes I
saw cannot capture the monotony of constant walking. However, that is what made my journey
so compelling. We never stayed in the same place twice. We were always moving forward. Every
day was foreign and new, yet every day was numbingly repetitive. I would wake up in a foreign
town, with foreign people, who spoke a foreign language, but I would pack my backpack the
same way I did the day before, wear the same clothes, put the same shoes on my same two feet,
and start walking toward the same place. Where there was discomfort in the strange places I
visited, there was comfort in walking there. Sometimes there was even comfort in the pain that
walking produced. I might not have known anything about the place I was headed, but I could
always count on it being painful getting there.

During our many miles together, my feet and I developed an intimate relationship, full of
deep love, frustration, and hardship. I tried my best to treat them with the kindness and respect
they deserved (they were my trusty vehicle for five weeks), but I grossly underestimated the toll
so many steps would take on my fragile feet. Even though it has been four months since I
finished walking, my feet have still not returned to their normal, pretty selves. My toes have a
surly curl, my heels protrude out with knobs of scar tissue, and I live with the constant fear that
hunks of dead skin will fall off at any moment. Sandals are impossible and airport security is
now my nightmare. My feet have not forgiven me for the pain I put them through. I see every fit
of numbness, spasm, and tenderness as a manifestation of their lingering bitterness.
My feet and I were traveling on the Via Francigena, an ancient road that goes from
Canterbury, England to Rome, Italy. For hundreds of years, pilgrims took the same trails we did
to reach Rome. With the fall of Rome, the way was lost and broken, but has been resurrected in
the last twenty years for modern pilgrims, like myself. I was taking this journey with a group of
nine other young pilgrims: Hadley, Alice, Laura B., Laura P., Ben, Dave, Dylan, Drew, and
David. We were walking together, but each experienced the pilgrimage in different ways.
I was expecting my pilgrimage to be a spiritual journey. I had experienced the meditative
effects of long walks before and thought a five hundred mile walk would result in deep reflection
and enlightenment. I was wrong. Instead of reflecting on spiritual matters, I thought about three
things: my feet, the pain my feet were going through, and when that pain would stop. When I
look back on the five hundred miles, the most painful moments make up my most vivid
memories.
One of those memories is crossing the Alps. There were portions of the pilgrimage where
towns and trails melted together to form an indistinguishable blob in my memory, but the Alps

are separate from those. There was so much anticipation to our ascent. Each day we could get
closer to the sharp peaks in front of us, wondering which one we would be traversing. We were
all anxious, these were supposed to be the most grueling three days of the whole pilgrimage. We
would ascend four thousand feet over twenty miles the first day, ascend another four thousand
feet over eight miles the second day, and descend eight thousand feet over twenty-two miles the
third day. I didnt tell my feet anything; I didnt want to scare them.
The night before the first part of our trip up, we slept on the floor of a Protestant church
in Martigny, Switzerland. I covered my legs in ibuprofen cream (sadly, not available in the
United States) and tried to sleep on the dirty linoleum floor under a folding card table, but my
anxiety and bladder barely allowed me to shut my eyes. In an effort to hydrate for the next day, I
drank enough water to make me wake up six times to pee that night. In the morning, with little
sleep, we started climbing before it was light out. I ate my last cup of fig yogurt as we zigged and
zagged across train tracks and out of Martigny. I searched the yogurt shelves of every grocery
store I went to after that, but never found that same fig yogurt again. I had expected to do some
soul searching on my pilgrimage, but the only thing I ended up searching for was fig yogurt. We
edged along a jagged hill, following Via Francigena way markers (yellow diamonds spraypainted onto the rocks). The path had a small chain railing running on the open side. It provided
neither support nor protection from my feet slipping off the side of the cliff. My feet inched away
from the edge as I wondered what horrific event spurred its construction.
After making it off the rocky bluff, we stopped at a bar in a deep valley wedged between
two mountains. My feet tingled and thanked me as I sat down. We were still being civil with each
other at this point. A young woman with wiry black hair played an American radio station and
served us cappuccinos with an apathetic stare. The song Call Me Maybe came on and seemed

very out of place in the idyllic Swiss town. The only association I had with the song was drunken
dancing, so comically different from the state I was in then.
During the next stretch, Hadley, Alice, I fell into the same pace. We started playing a
game where one person spoke the lyric to a well-known song in a British accent and the rest had
to guess what song it was. During the course of the pilgrimage, we would come up with many
ridiculous games to distract us from our pain and fatigue. The crude accents and shrieks of
laughter drowned my feets whimpering- I was getting tired. Up until this day, the longest we had
walked was twelve miles on flat terrain. The twenty miles and forty-five thousand steps up I
would take that day were looking harder.
Thankfully, our next break was longer. Half of our group had taken a wrong turn and
ended up making a five-kilometer detour. This gave my feet and I some much needed alone time.
I sat on the edge of a stone fountain, peeled my wet socks off, and undressed my feet. A pile of
white, fraying athletic tape fell into a heap on the stone pavers. The bandages covering my
previous blisters came off with the tape. Their white centers, dotted with blood and pus, also fell
to the ground. I wiggled my toes as my feet breathed in the brisk Alpine air. I examined them for
any impending wounds, but all I saw were stripes marking my feet- a pattern created by a stencil
of tape and dirt. I could feel my feet grinning as I dipped them into the icy fountain water. I did
not care that the fountain sat in the middle of the town square and I did not care that feet soaking
was undoubtedly not an intended use for this monument.
The group finally found its way to the town and we continued on and up towards our
destination for the night. My feet let out a loud sigh of resignation when we started walking
again; our brief moment of aquatic bliss had not been enough for them. I quickly became
separated from the rest of my group. I was too slow for the fast herd and too fast for the slow

herd. The weather greyed as I walked in the middle of the two packs. Clouds rolled in just as I
came out of a thickly forested trail. I crossed a wooden bridge and headed up gravel switchbacks
that looked like some sort of forest service road. I had been walking alone for nearly two hours.
There were no games I could play with myself to distract me from the pain and my gloomy
surroundings. I didnt bother asking my feet if they wanted to play; I could tell they werent in
the mood for games. The service road made me think I was close to a town and I got a rush of
energy. As I sped up, the sky became more ominous. There was definitely a storm coming in. It
started to mist and I picked up my pace, gravel slipping under my feet. My speed walking turned
into running when I thought thunder and lightning were approaching. My feet pushed their ache
up to my thighs, my thighs passed the pain to my hips, and my hips shot it into my lungs. I raced
through a Sound of Music-like meadow and up to a hotel in the small town of Bourg St. Pierre.
The town and hotel were creepily uninhabited. I felt like we were the first people to visit this
place in years.
I quickly found our groups room and sat on the flannel-covered bunk bed, unable to
think or move. The ten bunks were all connected, creating two inviting masses of plush red plaid.
I cant remember ever being so tired. I was too exhausted to eat, struggled to sit upright, and
didnt have enough energy to hold my mouth closed. Knowing I needed to be fresh and fueled
for the next day, I took a shower and dragged myself to dinner when all I really wanted to do was
sleep. The showers didnt drain, so my feet and ankles complaints about hygiene were muffled
by the four inches of water and grime they were submerged in. The next day would be our last
full day in Switzerland, so the ten of us gorged ourselves on Swiss cheese fondue. The hot soggy
bread sat in my shrunken stomach as my body searched for energy to digest it. My aching feet
whined as the blood flowed away from them and to my stomach.

We woke up in a cloud. Not fog, a cloud. As we walked higher, we reached the top of the
cloud. A herd of cows lingered on the trail and parted for us as we made our way up. Every cow
stared at us as we walked down the runway they had created for us. My feet nimbly avoided the
steaming piles of cow poop. Above the cloud sat a baby-blue lake. It appeared all at once as we
came out of the whiteness. Around every corner was another surprise. Rolling fields of wild
flowers dipped to reveal views of spiky mountains looming above. Behind a rough precipice
flowed a long waterfall; splashing its chilled water on the mossy rocks below. We skirted around
the lake and up its sides into the surrounding grasses. Creeks sprouted everywhere. The glacial
water flowed down into every possible crevice. It seeped into my shoes and soaked through my
socks.
I was told there would be snow. When I spotted the first patch of snow I threw a few
obligatory snowballs and continued on my way. I climbed a set of ancient steps carved into the
stone. Hannibals men supposedly constructed them when they crossed the Alps. My feet passed
over them without any thought. I tried to enjoy the historical significance, but my feet refused
and continued their trek. When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw the real snow. The rocks and
spray painted way markers were no longer visible. Not knowing which way to go, I approached a
wooden sign stuck into the snow. It read Hospice with an arrow pointing up what looked like
the bunny ski slopes I had learned how to ski on. It was not until later that I realized hospice
was the French word for hospitality and the sign was not some morbid omen placed in the snow
to make me contemplate my own death.
Afraid, I waited for the other group members to catch up to me before I kept going. There
didnt see to be any way to go. We could either go back down the way we came, scale the icy
cliff that was on my right, fall off the other icy cliff on my left, or go up the bunny ski slope in

front of me. Finally Laura P. approached. She stood beside me, looked around at the options, and
declared We just go up, duh. I didnt think it was so obvious. The ski hill was set in between
two mountain ridges. Their bases converged at the top of the slope, just as the slop began to veer
right. There was no visible end to the bunny ski slope, and in my mind, it went up forever.
Despite its frightening appearance, we started going up that bunny ski slope. My feet
winced as I forcefully pushed them into the snow. Going up this mountain was painfully slow. I
would jam one foot into the snow, take a break, and then jam the other foot into the snow. This
pace continued until I reached the curve in the slop and finally saw my destination. My feet
protested loudly as the snow melted into my thin tennis shoes. I ignored their complaints and
kept walking; they didnt know how close we were. Despite being short of breath, I raced out of
the snowy part and on to the rocky side of the mountain. It was so steep I had to resort to a bear
crawl. My stomach dropped every time rocks came out from under my feet and fell down the
slope. One misstep and those rocks could have been me, tumbling down the slope and crashing
into the Hospice sign below.
I reached the top and watched the tiny dots that were the other group members fumble up
the mountain. When the whole group had reached the top, we headed to the monastery where we
would be staying that night. A monk greeted us and rushed us up to an attic dining room. The ten
of us sat at one large table as monks ladled hot soup into the bowls in front of us. The soups
warmth traveled from my mouth to my stomach, and then outwards towards my limbs. When it
reached my feet, they relaxed, happy to be out of the snow. Other guests of the monastery were
also being served. There was a table of priests, a few nuns, a group of Japanese tourists, and a
rowdy bilingual adult karate team. It was an interesting crowd.

After the warming meal, I ventured out into Ground St. Bernard to find a place for some
bonding time with my feet. The town only had about five buildings, not including the tiny patrol
office on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Of the five buildings, three were gift shops.
The other two were the large square, beige monastery and a St. Bernard museum, complete with
dogs carrying barrels of wine around their necks. I found a patch of grass on the banks of the
frozen lake that divided Switzerland and Italy. To get there, I had to cross into Italy and then back
into Switzerland on the other side of the lake. I sat on the grass, took off my shoes, and laid out
my tools: needle, thread, a lighter to sterilize the needle, Band-Aids, and a package of tissues to
soak up the pus from my blister. During the pilgrimage, my feet and I took a special pleasure in
popping blisters together. Our patch of grass was also a front row seat to the karate groups
practice. They punched, kicked, and grunted in unison as my feet and I began our daily therapy
session.
I had a bright squishy white mound on the heel of my left foot. I sterilized the needle,
threaded it, and pushed it through the side of the juicy blister. I let the thread capture some of the
fluid before I pulled it out. A flood of liquid squirted as I applied pressure to the ripe blister. In an
effort to get a better look at the wound, I brought my foot closer to my face and got a whiff of the
rancid pus. My feet were content after I rid them of blisters. I could now fall asleep without fear
of being woken up by their groaning.
The next morning, I felt myself becoming a little morose as I descended from Ground St.
Bernard, knowing I had reached the highest point of the pilgrimage. My feet grunted as they slid
to the fronts of my shoes and I made my way down the lush meadow into Italy. Within minutes
of beginning the decent my feet, knees, and I started to loathe trekking downhill. While trying to
retrace my steps on Google Maps now, the map takes on a green haze upon crossing the border

into Italy. The features of the landscape, the paths I took, and the towns I saw are blurred out.
Strangely, that is how I remember that day. I was still dizzy from the altitude and all I recall is
looking down into undistinguishable green terrain. Again, I did not know what strange or foreign
things awaited me at the bottom, but my feet and I were sure it would be painful getting there.

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