I often think of King Henry II.

After the death of Thomas Beckett, he spent one year walking barefoot from Canterbury to Rome; a journey of penitence. And the physical chastisement of travel is a tempting salve to the guilt in any conscience.

But I enjoy travel not for its escapism (for in how many journeys is the destination the same as the starting point) but for its absolute absorption and its absolute potential.

What is absorption?

When I was 21, I cycled 5,000 kilometres from Clermont Ferrand in France to Jerusalem in Israel. Two friends and I followed the route of the First Crusade down through Italy, along the Via Ignacia from Durres in Albania to Istanbul in Turkey. From there we cut south across the Anatolian Plateau, down through Syria, Lebanon, back into Syria, down into Jordan and finally to Israel.

Every day we cycled between 60 and 170 kilometres on our bikes, carrying around 15-20kg of kit with us each. Each day we set a goal and regardless of its distance or difficulty, we made goal. Then we sat, enjoyed a beer or an ice cream, sometimes both, and slept like we were dead.

In the mornings we would talk amongst ourselves, excited by the possibilities of the day ahead, discussing the route, the scenery, the smells. We would ride side by side (usually annoying the traffic), discussing mundane topics in the sunshine. It was bliss.

In the afternoons we would insulate ourselves, our minds turned to the road ahead. I like to call this 60% time. This is the best thinking time: where 60% of your concentration is tied up in a mundane or mechanical task, free from distraction, able to focus on serious mental effort — problem solving, rehearsing half-time team talks, learning to forgive myself; sweating out the guilt.

That long thread of the afternoon was a huge pleasure to pick up and put down each day. Not in the pleasure that makes you smile, but the pleasure of a craft. Picking it up daily. Putting it back daily. Working at it long but not until drained — like drawing from a deep, cool well each day of a long hot summer.

What is potential?

To me travel is expectation. When travelling the future is change, never continuation— the future cannot mimic the present. Travel does not force change on you, it is change.

Each step is a step away, not only from both the past and the present. The mechanics of travel drive out the present. We lose our link with the present by actively stepping into the future. The physicality of travel breaks the ground of stasis, preparing it for change and change gives meaning to potential because without the possibility of change, potential does not exist.

Where do we go from here?

So I think of Henry II who walked to Rome to salve the guilt of his conscience following the murder of his friend.

I think of my journey to Jerusalem and the changes it augered in my life.

And I look to my next adventure, to slake my guilt for the past and to break the ground for the future.

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