Thinking Out LoudI recently saw the movie The Salt Path. It starts out bleak. Raynor and Moth are a middle-aged couple who lose their farm in North Wales after a failed investment, find out that Moth has a terminal brain disease, and decide that there is nothing else to do but walk the thousand-kilometre South West Coast Path – all in the same week.
The movie gave me the feels. I cried at the kindnesses shown by people to each other on the road, and when Raynor says Moth is her “home”.
I hadn’t done due diligence on the film and didn’t realise that this movie is based on the blockbuster memoir of real people until the credits rolled with an update on the wild-camping couple.
A journalist from The Observer did more due diligence. And uncovered a different story. Raynor allegedly stole £64,000 from her boss, a local real estate agent, and the couple lost their farm when they were forced to repay some of the amount. They also owned a property in France all along – so, not technically “homeless” – and Moth’s miraculous physical transformation does not ring true with medical experts.
Why do I feel conned by this? After all, it does appear that Raynor and Moth have endured some movie-and-memoir-worthy trials on the road. Maybe I’m embarrassed at how easily I fall for modern and miraculous pilgrim stories, packaged within a satisfying narrative arc. Maybe I’m sheepish at also wanting to have my own pilgrim story, telling people how I took “a narrow path alongside the busy world”, as Raynor says.
We expect pilgrimages to change us, to make us face our true selves. Are we ready to face the extent of our own personal spin during life’s journey, and our own inconvenient backstories?
This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook.