Your Story

The days have mingled together, slipping by like the butter that slips over your morning croissant. Coffee, made the Spanish way, is the only constant in your month of walking. You have learned how to ask exactly for what you want now through elaborate games of charades. The early mornings have you walking up to five miles before breakfast. In that haze you admit your addiction. You admit that you are not strong enough, alone, to face the days. The daze of walking has become a trance that you fall in and out of. Each morning you will wonder if your feet still work.
They do.
Usually.
You have learned to find other pilgrims based on a specific way of walking. They call it the Diesel engine start. The movement that follows standing up starts slow, and requires some momentum to shift into a normal rhythm. "It does not matter how slow you go, so long as you do not stop."
But you do stop, often, in the bars scattered through the small towns.
You stop to say hello to the new flowers.
You stop to admire the walls of stone, reinvented by nature with moss.
You stop to breathe in air that everyone else on earth is breathing.
You start to feel the ebb and pull of the universe taking care of you. Intuition is gaining back her voice as you listen to and respect your body. Your story.
And I say yours because it is easier than saying mine.
Because everything I learn, I learn from you. From others. From reflections, inward and out.
Every fiber of life is vibrating with explanation, waiting for someone to listen. I have chosen to listen. I hope you will too.
This is your story, this is my story.
We walk and write alone, together.