Day 079a: Up early to freshen UP … (July 02, 2019)
I tend to naturally wake early even when not walking a pilgrimage, and this morning was no different from so many others before – rising feeling vibrant & refreshed after only four hours of sleep in my serendipitous 4-star pension-lobby sanctuary. I then proceeded to do what I also do on most similar pilgrimage mornings: saunter into the calm solace of the still-shadow-shrouded morning; “gloam-roaming” I like to call it. No matter the size or location of the particular city or town, the uber-early morning hours are almost always profoundly peaceful, and such was the case on this morning as well, with me reveling in the misty quiet of pre-dawn Roncevalles, slowly yet fluidly making my way to the already open restaurant foyer of the private hostel where breakfast was going to be served several hours later. And what to my incredible good fortune should await me there but an incredibly comfortable sofa-bench on which to sit and a first class restroom in which to freshen up for the coming day’s adventures – with the latter of which being joyfully equipped with a hand drier perfectly fashioned to dry my freshly washed (and now delightfully clean) underwear from the day before … 😉
“The seemingly random events in life, the subconsciously unscreened wonders that wash over us with beautiful regularity, allow us to rediscover what we rarely admit we’re looking for. Walking pilgrimage – even if that pilgrimage is but an intentional, highly-focused immersion into the roadways of our everyday – is a potent way of maintaining a bulwark against this erosion of the mind, the body, and the landscape. Every such walker is a guard on patrol to protect ineffable from loss or erosion; every pilgrim a guardian of the sacred that permeates our every moment.” ~ inspired by Rebecca Solnit
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