Day 22g: A most holy Release … (05/06/2019)
I hobble-limped my way into the Swiss town of Lyss after an extra-wonderful AND extra-long day (with close to 30 km wobbled from start to finish) and — as was regularly the case throughout the European portion of my Walk — made my way directly to the town`s Catholic Church (places of respite both calm & cool that tended to remain open every day of the week in Switzerland until around 8pm). As was also often the case during my Trek (especially on nights where the temperature was already plunging towards “too cold to sleep”), I resolved to remain in this particularly warm & cozy sanctuary until closing time and then ask the closing attendant where I might be able to get out of the cold for the night (an intentionally vague query that sometimes landed me a church’s rec-room sofa and sometimes not).
Well, as it turns out, the woman responsible for closing up the church that night came 30 minutes early and she didn’t see me, nor I her (I was intently writing in my journal). That`s right, my Friends, she came to close up early and inadvertently locked me in for the night! :O
Now, this was admittedly cause for much initial celebration on my part, as my feet & legs were in a rough way and the church was quite snuggly and pseudo-toasty. And yet things quickly became somewhat nerve-wracking when I remembered that Peace Pilgrims tend to drink ALOT of water while walking — and that those who drink lots of water over extended periods of time tend to have much to offer in the way of urinations during the night. :O
So there I was, locked in this amazing church and desperately not wanting to pee in any of its lovely corners that evening. What was a needing-to-pee pilgrim to do?!?!?
Well, solution number 01 presented itself in the form of a sweet little ceramic flower pot holder located at the base of the church`s statue-shrine to St. Anthony of Padua. I apologized sincerely to said Saint for borrowing the same and successfully used it until about 2am to avoid defiling the church. Unfortunately, I was so successful at using it that it was completely full at that point — and I still had a good 6 hours of probable pee-breaks to go until the woman returned to open up the church; a realization that had me to quickly yet quite unsteadily rising up at a very early hour and hobbling oh so humorously around the entire church looking for a suitable backup “chamber pot” … 😀 😀 😀
Now there were quite a few glass votive candle holders available, of course, and yet I didn’t really trust my aim that well to use them requisitely. ( 😀 ) In addition, the sanctuary’s other flower pots had their holy arrangements far too firmly ensconced too remove, and it was starting to look like I was going to have to lie down at the front door and try to shoot my urine under the same as best I could — needless to say NOT an exciting proposition (much less one that was in any way likely to succeed).
Fortunately of all fortunatelies, I finally found two very large ceramic candle holders tucked away underneath the staircase leading up to the church balcony, and was able to use one of them for all the rest of the night`s pitstops. ( 😀 ) So, without any further panic, I was able to easily hide when the woman returned the following morning (again 30 minutes early, by the way), to secretively dump the evening`s accumulated pee outside in the bushes after she left, to vigorously clean the used vessels with my remaining drinking water (+ several drops of the super-duper aromatherapy oil that I had been carrying with me as both toothpaste & deodorant), and to then jovially flow southward without committing any deeply offending damage … 😀 😀 😀
“Integrity is doing the Right Thing even while no one is watching.” ~ via C. S. Lewis
P.S. This is quite probably the only time in recorded human history that someone has actually honored the sanctity of a church sanctuary while simultaneously urinating therein … 🙂
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