THE GREAT MIGRATION BY DANIEL KJELLGREN
Not normal, abnormal, obscure, crazy even, was generally people’s reaction when I said what I was about to embark on: 125 marathons in 70 days, crossing nine countries and an entire continent in the process.
It still is. Most people’s reaction to the project, I mean.
Firstly, they’re probably right about the latter. That I’m crazy. Fuck yes, I’m crazy.
The great migration — by Daniel Kjellgren
No doubt about that, ladies and gentlemen. But as I sit here now, wrestling with the blank page, months after touching the famous globe on the North Cape plateau, which ironically sits on the tip of Magerøya (translated as Skinny Island – which is a pretty fitting description of me at the time), I’m pretty sure they’re all wrong about the former: that it’s not normal.
“Shut the fuck up – you’re crazy.”
Agreed. Just hear me out.
I still remember it vividly. Like it was this year almost, which it was.
Anyhow, as I dragged my broken feet and malnourished body over mountains and slid through deserted valleys, as I flowed with the rivers and dodged semi-trucks and cars giving me the finger along the uncountable number of highways, I started to question whether or not this really was an act of abnormality.
Initially, I would agree. But suddenly, something deep inside of me started to shift, move.
Maybe this was how it all should be? Could it not?
In fact, the more I moved, the more I looked around, the more evident it became: this is the way of the world. The way of man.
In Hinduism, “being moved by nature” is the same expression as “moving with nature.” These words represent the fundamental nature of reality.
Suddenly I started seeing signs everywhere.
For example: Across the barren and sun-exposed midparts of Spain, the parts you never hear about and never should (there’s literally nothing there), I would occasionally get a quick spell of desperately needed shade.
But the shade didn’t stem from large trees or bushes, nor mountains, buildings or even clouds, as you might expect. No, it came from huge flocks of migrating birds, moving like one with each other, like one with nature.
Like slow-moving parasols in the sky, the flocks would completely cover the blazing sun for a second or three, as they made their way north to escape the increasing inferno starting to engulf and devour the south.
This journey, this migration, this natural cycle of movement is, well, all around us, and at all times. We just fail to recognise it. And who can blame us. With modern society moving at the pace of a Japanese high-speed train, and all.
But just like a Japanese high-speed train, the natural cycle of movement is like clockwork, down to a freakin’ tee.
I remember stopping for a second, looking up at the birds, sweat pouring down my forehead and falling off the tip of my nose, swearing I could hear the tectonic plates shift beneath my worn rubber soles, like the dials of a clock. I swear I could hear it. Then again, I was heavily under the influence of no sleep, painkillers and ten ultramarathons in a row.
Whether I was imagining the noise or not, doesn’t make this movement any less true. It’s happening now, all around us, at all times. Don’t believe me?
Well, let’s take the tiny Monarch butterfly in North America, who travels 3000 miles from California to the mountains of Central Mexico to seek shelter for the Winter, to the 1.5 million wildebeest who follow the seasonal rains in Africa.
It’s all based on Earth’s inherent clock.
