I walked on & one & on this day, and finally reached the tiny village of La Clauze, where I had originally intended to stay the night. And yet before I could search for a place to hunker down and rest my head, I was presented with a far more pressing matter — I really […]
What the village of La Clauze lacked in human hospitality (not only had the high-end Coustette rejected my pleas for assistance, but the local pilgrims hostel and even a handful of local residents had coldly turned me away as well) it more than made up for in logistical support — mostly in the form of […]
Even though my days-of-old refuge provided nothing more than a dirt floor for bedding*, a few old blankets had been left in the corner by the caretaker of this indeed fine establishment; blankets that proved to make not the cleanest mattress in the world, but blankets that did indeed provide a fine-enough night’s sleep nonetheless […]
I will admit that many of my more uncomfortable sleeping arrangements during The Walk ended up being by far my more favored ones — partially due to the after-the-fact feelings of strength and resolve and even accomplishment that always came from weathering the same. And yet my night in the La Clauze refuge turned out […]
Uber-early pre-sunrise mornings like this one were by far my favorite times of Walking … 🙂 “It’s all stories, really. Even the sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. So whenever you choose to change the story, you are also choosing to change the world.” ~ via Terry […]
“He walked out in the gray morning light and stood silently; seeing fully for that most brief of moments the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of an intestate earth, surrounded by a darkness implacable. And this darkness scythed by the brilliance of the Sun in its spinning. The freezing black vacuum […]
And so it was that I quickly came to the small village of Le Falzet — a village permanently scarred by the suffocatingly vapor-thick odor wafting up from the 2-3 inches of cow manure that was thickly pasted over the entirety of its small streets … 🙁 🙁 🙁 And as I came into the […]
“In each moment one has a choice to take one of two very different paths: either to plod along and wait for a special day to arrive – or to joyfully celebrate the truth that each & every day is innately and brilliantly special.” ~ via Rasheed Ogunlaru
One might say that traipsing off into the neighboring underbrush to circumnavigate a monstrous mud-puddle is no big deal. On this day I chose to differ … 😀 “You will encounter many great obstacles and you will be defeated by more than few of them, and yet you must never relax into resignation. For in […]
It didn’t really matter that this would end up being my only day walking with Terri.* We embraced our companionship completely come what would; each of us choosing to become the fastest of Friends, walking in wholehearted gratitude — each of us doing so as though she truly was going to walk alongside me all […]
Terri and I pulled briefly into the hostel rest-stop at Sauvage, and while we were not met with any sizable amount of Kindness there, I was able to witness a signaged tribute to one of my favorite French words — Poubelle (pronounced poo-bell), which means nothing short of “garbage” or “refuse” … 😀 “The readiness […]
;
