My first solo journey. And why all and all should try at least once

It was not an escape. I was not looking for answers, nor lighting. I just wanted to walk alone. I chose Umbria and the Way of silent villages For my first solo trip. Ninety kilometers in four days, with a too heavy backpack, a paper guide, a bottle and a great desire for silence. A real silence, made of forest noises, steps on dirt roads, wind among the olive trees. A silence that feels stronger than any voice.

The Way of silent villages It is a ring route that winds through the Amerini Mountains, in the province of Terni. It crosses remote villages, sometimes almost uninhabited: villages such as Morruzze, Toscolano, Melezzole, Acqualoreto, Civitella del Lago. Some count just seven inhabitants. Easier to meet a wild boar than another walker.

I chose it because I wanted to be alone. But also because I wanted to listen. Of me, of my passage, of what emerges when there is no music in the ears or notifications to be controlled. I deliberately decided not to listen to anything: no podcasts, no audiobooks, no playlists. Only the sound of the path and breath.

I did it at the end of March, in the low season. I have not met almost anyone. For whole days, no human being in the visual radius. Just a few curious cats, some farmers in the distance, and a map to follow, often without signal on the phone. A condition unthinkable in our time, yet reassuring. No Google Maps, no chat. Only instinct, memory and ability to orient themselves.

Collelungo, internal alleys

Flexibility training

UNo of the reasons why walking alone is so powerful is that it forces you to adapt. Not to have everything under control. To improvise. That for a programming champion like me it sounds like torture.

First variable out of control: the weather. I had to change the itinerary several times (lengthening it) to avoid muddy and slippery paths, too dangerous for but alone, which I viewed in a crevasse with my legs broken without cellular net. Each detour was a small risk, a mental adjustment. There is no comfort zone when you have to decide, every time, what is the most sensible thing to do. And when your security depends only on your common sense, you realize how used to delegating it to others.

Second variable: it’s not all available. One day I arrived in one of these remote villages, hungry after hours of walking. But it was Monday. Everything closed. The only food, closed, even if on Google Maps it opened it up (another lesson learned). The bar, closed. The restaurant marked on the guide? Not received. Maybe he had failed or maybe opened only in summer. No food, no coffee, no alternatives. Only the half -broken protein bars on the bottom of the backpack.

It was then that I met one of the seven inhabitants of the village. An elderly man, who offered me a coffee in his cuisine and told me that he had never left that country in his whole life. Never. In an era in which we all try to go anywhere, he had remained there. Rooted. Silent. In peace. It was a more satiating chat of any meal.

A meeting that reminded me how much the paths are not only physical, but also made of humanityand that the surprise is always where you do not look for it. Thanks to him I also managed to get some food for the evening.

The truth is that making a lonely journey puts you to the test, but it also teaches you an essential thing: flexibility is survival. It is the ability to welcome the unexpected without being crushed. In a world where we always have everything available, where hunger is resolved with an app and uncertainty is chased away with a notification, walking alone brings you back to the essential. To what you can do with what you have. Find out you already have everything you need, but buried under all you don’t need.

My first solo journey. And because all of them should try at least once

The body, the mind, the present

When you are alone and walk, The body becomes your only ally. Any pain has a name. Each step is an act of trust. You can’t delegate anything: you can’t ask you to take your backpack, you don’t have to slow down to adapt to someone else’s step. You don’t have to explain anything to anyone. And the mind also slowly aligns.

Walking is a form of moving meditation. According to neuroscience, when the body is engaged in a repetitive and not very tiring action – such as the journey – the default Mode Network is activated, that part of the brain that works in the background, reworking memories, emotions, problems left pending.

Maestro Tetsugen Serra: «Today it seems that we exist only if we tell each other on social media. Silence, however, brings us closer to ourselves in depth, practice it is a medicine “

We live on posts, comments, reactive and never reflective responses. The practice of silence brings us closer to the calm to which – after all – we all loosen. It is not a disconnection, but a way to reconnect to oneself and others

Arrow

silence

There is no need to sit with crossed legs or empty the mind. Just let it go. While the body deals with the rhythm – one foot in front of the other, the breath that aligns the step – the mind frees itself from the task of controlling everything and begins to work in a different, deeper way.

It is in those moments that the thoughts we avoided, new ideas, unexpected connections emerge. The mind, far from noise and urgencies, puts order in the drawers that we had left open, without even realizing it.

Walking alone, without distractions, amplifies this process. There is no one to stop the flow, no external dialogue to respond to. A mental space is created that in everyday life is almost nowhere to be found: a space where we must not be productive, but we can simply be with ourselves. And from there, often, the most true answers are born.

Messages along the way

Messages along the way

The path transforms everyone, even if it is not for everyone

You don’t have to climb mountains or do extreme trekking. Just carve out of real time, without distractions. Even a weekend, even three days behind the house. Walking alone is not a company, it is a choice of attention. A choice of presence.

Is it afraid? Yes. Before leaving I studied the itinerary, I tried to organize everything better and then discover that I have to throw almost every floor on the air by day. Is it uncomfortable? Sometimes. But for this reason, it changes you. Because he puts you in front of what you are, without roles, without tinsel. He trains you to listen to you. And to find that perhaps, all in all, you have all the cards to get it in any situation.

I have not found answers, on the path of silent villages. But I learned to not need it immediately. Sometimes just put one foot in front of the other, breathe, feel the sound of one’s thoughts in the woods. And trust. The rest will come.

Source: Vanity Fair

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