Here We Go, Again…

Dreams & fires are alike ….some are extinguished  … some burn out… others die out, smolder… then some new fuel and a breath of air and they reignite.

It’s been almost 2 years since our ‘shakedown’ walk in Switzerland on the Jakobsweg… 100km in a week. A test of our desire to walk the Camino de Santiago (Way of St James). We discovered that not only was walking the best way to see and experience the countryside and people but, we really enjoyed the challenge of carrying all our necessities on our backs 20+ km each day to stop at a hostel populated with others with similar intentions.m shakedown . And so, OUR dream/plan became –  work one more year save [Our lives are bound by one financial stricture – absolutely  NO DEBT. Saving up rather than ‘borrowing’ is our mode…]  and prepare for the three month walk from where we left off in Switzerland through France and Spain to the Compostela de Santiago in Spain, a 2300+ km journey. BUT, when in early 2016 we had to commit to another year teaching at a dysfunctional school, the stress on our physical & mental health was a price higher than we were willing to pay.  We retired from teaching and returned home.

We thought the dream extinguished,… but, it was merely smoldering until a breath of air and some added fuel changed everything. For Tilly and I the ‘air’  was the question ‘if you had only 30 days to live… what would you do?’ Both of us immediately  thought of the Camino journey we had abandoned.  Our fuel was the follow-up “ IF those things are so important WHY NOT do them NOW?” The fire was re-kindled.

Our first question wasn’t “Can we afford it?” but rather “What do we do to make it happen?”  I jumped into “RESEARCH” mode… within a day I had a spread sheet detailing the daily expenses, travel costs and associated costs (storage for our 5W and truck). We could consider 30 days, 45 days & even up to 60 days. But the three month journey that would take up where we left off in Switzerland would have to wait until we added a few more $ to the travel fund.

When your plans don’t fit your circumstances THEN it is time to take the hint and alter the plans. If we started in France, we had the perfect window of opportunity … Late Sept – October and November …60 or so days. We could use our accumulated air miles to lessen the cost – although in the end it only saved us 20% or so as we jumped through hoops & miscellaneous expenses of transferring and purchasing the extra air miles to make it all work. Having used all our air miles; next time I will just hunt the cheapest flights online… less work and certainly less aggravation.

So 10 days after the decision to go… only first nights hotel and the flights are booked. If it had not been so prohibitive cost wise I would not have booked a return fight home…. then we would have had no deadline. So I booked our return from Paris 67 days after our arrival… almost twice the time most folks take to complete the journey… alleviating the ‘deadline factor’. Once we arrive in Paris – we can be like the pilgrims of old …take it one day at a time… accepting what comes.

In the last few days though, I have come to realize that our ‘journey’ doesn’t start when we first put our feet on the trail in France. It began nearly 3 weeks ago when we committed our selves to this – our “Pilgrimage” or just a very long walk?  What’s the difference? A Pilgrimage to me, implies a journeying with an spiritual or religious intent. My interest is not in seeking enlightenment or an life altering epiphany. It is merely to walk a long way and see what happens…. it is about ‘being’ moment to moment in the now…

But I think my easy explanation to anyone who asks WHY, will be  “Because it’s there” (George Mallory’s reply when asked why he wanted to be the first to climb Mt Everest.)