This morning, I found myself back in Ireland on top of a cliff at the end of the Pilgrim’s Path in County Donegal.

A little later I wandered through the Scottish Highlands near Ullapool. By the afternoon I was standing inside a medieval chapel in Brittany, listening to the echoes of footsteps from years ago.

And yet, I never left my home.

In fact, only a day earlier I’d decided that I wasn’t going anywhere this summer.

For weeks I’d been trying to convince myself that I should return to Ireland. The Nijmegen Four Days Marches are coming up, and a week of hiking through the Irish countryside seemed like perfect training. I also wanted to record a new series of podcast episodes about Celtic saints. And, if I’m honest, I didn’t need much of an excuse to go back. Ireland has a habit of making me feel at home.

Then my left foot had other ideas.

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While putting on my walking shoes one morning, I felt a sharp pain across the middle of my foot. Nothing dramatic (probably an irritated tendon due to the amount of walking I’ve been doing lately) but enough to make me wonder whether hiking eight hours a day was really such a brilliant plan. After a bit of reading, the advice seemed remarkably consistent.

Take it easy.

Not exactly the words an enthusiastic walker hopes to hear.

For a day or two I kept trying to negotiate with reality. Maybe it would disappear. Maybe I could simply walk through it. Walkers are remarkably good at bargaining with their own bodies.

Eventually I admitted that Ireland would have to wait.

Oddly enough, I didn’t feel disappointed for very long.

That afternoon I connected an old external hard drive to my computer.

Back in time

The drive was full of video footage I’d almost forgotten about.

Ireland.

Scotland.

Brittany.

Hours upon hours of walks through ruined monasteries, tiny churches and windswept landscapes. I started opening folders almost at random, curious to see what my younger self had been filming all those years ago.

I was surprised by what I found.

Long before I ever started my daily podcast about the saints, I was already stopping in front of ancient statues and forgotten chapels, trying to tell their stories. Apparently I’ve been preparing for this project for years without realising it.

I even found clips that I’d filmed twice, once in Dutch and once in English, because at the time I imagined turning them into a television series.

That television series never happened.

Life took a different direction.

But as I watched those old recordings, a new idea began to emerge.

Looking forward by looking back

I asked myself if I really needed to travel back to Ireland right now? Or had I already brought home everything I needed?

Instead of rushing to book flights and hostels, I could revisit those journeys from my desk. I could combine the old recordings with new narration and tell the stories I hadn’t yet found the time to tell.

In a way, it felt like walking those roads again.

Only this time I could slow down.

There’s something strangely comforting about discovering that not every creative project has to begin with something new. Sometimes you’ve already done half the work years earlier, without knowing where it would eventually lead.

I’m beginning to suspect that creativity isn’t only about collecting new experiences. It’s also about recognising the value of experiences you’ve been carrying with you all along.

The right journey

So Ireland is staying exactly where it is.

The hills will still be there in autumn. The monasteries aren’t going anywhere. And perhaps my foot will be a little happier by then as well.

In the meantime, I have plenty of stories waiting to be rediscovered.

Not only on that hard drive, but also in the growing stack of interviews with fantasy authors, in the pages of my unfinished novel, and in the recordings I made only this week inside a museum filled with centuries of Christian history.

It’s funny: I thought I was postponing a journey. Instead, I seem to have found another one.

Maybe Doc Brown was right.

Sometimes you really don’t need roads.

Listen to the Podcast

This article grew out of this week’s episode of my podcast The Walk. You can listen by tapping the play button in the podcast player at the top of this post.

Quick updates

* This week, my Dutch podcast about the saints follows the route of the Nijmegen Four Days Marches, which begins in just a few weeks. Along the way, we explore the remarkable stories of the saints who have shaped this region for centuries. If you understand Dutch, you can listen to the series here.

* Next week, the podcast heads to Spain. Throughout July and August, I’ll be taking listeners along the Camino de Santiago in a 40 part series, sharing the stories of the saints, churches and unexpected encounters I experienced along the pilgrimage.

* Behind the scenes, I’m migrating my website and podcasts to a new hosting provider. It’s mostly technical housekeeping and shouldn’t affect listeners, readers or supporters. My hope is simply to make everything a bit more sustainable for the future.

* I’m also working on two new podcast projects. One is a soft reboot of The Break, exploring the deeper layers of films, television series and other stories. The other is a Dutch podcast for fantasy readers, featuring conversations with some of my favourite authors. More on both very soon.

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