Even though I experienced a dearth of compassion & warmth on this first very long and at times quite disheartening American day, there were flashes of loving brilliance that were found – the first of which coming from Akin; an ice cream parlor owner whose nonvegan ice cream was respectfully declined but whose very vegan […]
After pausing for a time on the raised front stoop of the Ascension Greek Orthodox Catholic Church (and thinking at first that I would simply lay down there to sleep), I stumbled on into the late night; eventually into the township of North Bergen, where I tried to sleep on two different city benches without […]
On & on & on I stumbled through that night – into & through the townships of Guttenberg and West New York and Union City in turn. It was in the latter that I spontaneously decided to head more towards the Hudson River, and I did so winding along a series of little used and […]
I think it almost goes without saying that I didn’t get the best night’s sleep on the high-rise’s front staircase (maybe a few fitful hours, at best), and so I shrugged my shoulders, got up, smiled gently, and hobbled off into the still-dark very-early morn … “What embodies the greatest meaning (and thereby garners the […]
I made it without incident into the town of Hoboken and ask three wandering youths the best walking route to Jersey City. They were kind enough in their intentions, and yet wholly clueless about local geography, as their advice sent me headlong into one dead-end after another. And yet true to this Walk’s miraculous form, […]
And then, after waking gratefully and proceeding onward resolutely, the Sun began to rise in earnest, and I looked to my left and realized that I had made it back to the original latitude of my American adventure’s beginning – that, after walking some 20 miles northward to make it across the Hudson River into […]
I made it into and through the towns (cities, really) of Newport & Jersey City, and then onward (with a little directional assistance from two kind paramedics, who were both openly astounded over the Walk’s Way) into Lafayette, where the Clair Memorial United Methodist Church beckons to me, and I enter just in time to […]
And here, in the early moments of only my second day of walking in the West, I was shown without doubt or question that the American version of The Path would not be nearly as smooth* … *In truth, the “shoulder” pictured below was actually one of the more pilgrim-friendly trails I would be offered […]
I then ambled onward, over a long and traffic-laden bridge over the Hackensack River into the town of Kearney, and then onward again across a bridge just as bustling – over the Passaic River and into the city of Newark proper … “Each time a person passes by you and you say ‘Hello’ – even […]
I was deep into the early outskirts of Newark when I saw and then entered the Blue Print Cafe, where Deja joyfully and respectfully offered me a cool glass of water, a bevy of vegan doughnut samples, and a heavy dose of kindness (all to the background music of Erykah Badu) … “Some folks say […]
“Nature’s first green is gold, the hardest hue to hold. Her earliest leaf’s a flower; and yet only so for an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf, as Eden sank in grief. And so dawn goes down to day, for nothing gold can stay.” ~ via Robert Frost
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