Last year, grieving the loss of her mother during the pandemic and the breakdown of her marriage, Maryanne Hawes set out to walk the 177-mile (285km) Offa’s Dyke Path. By the time she reached the end, she had completely changed her life. Last year, grieving the loss of her mother during the pandemic and the breakdown of her marriage,
“My mum had dementia and went into a care home in September 2019, then died in December 2020. I didn’t see her for months because we weren’t allowed in the care home and the grief around that was just unbelievable. At the same time as this very personal grief was another layer of grief for the thousands of people who had lost their lives, and the way society had polarised. And beyond that, a kind of existential, environmental grief for the state of the planet and how nothing serious was being done to help. There seemed to be layer upon layer of grief and the only way I could deal with it at the time was to make art. Then I just needed to get outside.
“Before I did Offa’s Dyke, I didn’t consider myself a walker but I always hankered for it. I remember reading The Whole Story by Ffyona Campbell who walked around the world in the ’90s and thinking that having just one thing to do, one thing that’s your goal and is going to take years, would be incredible.
“I did the first couple of sections in January 2023 and walked about six miles. It was so muddy and I was absolutely knackered. I didn’t know how anyone could get up and walk day after day... But stretching my body felt great and I thought ‘well, what would it be like if I carried on?’ I consciously set myself the goal of finishing the whole of the path by the end of the year.
“While I was on the walk, I identified three phases that my mind would go through. At first, I’d just be preoccupied with the immediate worries of the day: whether my feet are sore, if I’ve got too much stuff in my rucksack or enough water… All these practicalities distracted me from the emotional turmoil and the thought of, ‘God, another shit day where I’ve got to face it all’. No. All I had to do was get to point B. That was it.
“I always found the first hour or so physically hard and then I would warm up, get into a rhythm and the miles would start to slip by without my noticing or thinking much at all. It was this phase of being completely in flow and almost meditative. I could cover miles like that. And then I’d have moments of really deep thought where I wasn’t even really conscious that I was thinking but would have quite revelatory thoughts.
“There aren’t many situations in life where you give yourself a whole day just to be on your own and think about the things that are important to you. It felt like a real luxury to have that time. And I think it’s easy to lose
