I woke from a fine sleep and enjoyed some lively banter at the breakfast table with several fellow pilgrims before offering up the standard bevy of heartfelt farewells and heading back out onto The Road. And yet St. Jean Pied du Port wasn’t too keen on letting us flow onward that easily, as Jean Marc soon discovered that he had forgotten to put on his trekking shoes for his final day of walking. I, of course, told him that I would wait for him while he retrieved them, and the entire affair had me reminiscing fondly about how my 2008 Camino compatriot had been forced to return to her hostel from almost exactly the same spot due to her inability to open up & extend her telescoping walking sticks.

“If you are going to try, then go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. If you are going to try, then go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. Go all the way anyway. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail, derision, mockery, isolation. And yet isolation is a gift, and all the others are but test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you will do it, despite rejection and the worst of odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine … If you are going to try, then go all the way. For you will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. Do it, do it, do it … Go all the way … All the way. Do this and you will ride life straight to perfect laughter.” ~ via Charles Bukowski

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt