Happy Trails, Hard Roads, Missing Signposts

Two hundred and ninety-three point zero six kilometers (or 182.1 miles) of walking/hiking since I closed the doors to my office for sabbatical. It has taken almost every one of those steps to lean in and let go of all that I have left on pause. That is the thing, life goes on despite my efforts to hang on to what I think I can correct, organize, or re-arrange for others or myself, it will all still be there when I return – so, I might as well relish in all that is before me on THIS mile. I cannot go back and walk what I’ve once covered by foot. I have traveled too far across this foreign country already to retrace any footsteps other than those whose permanent indentation exists over centuries and even thousands of years during other empires. As I forge my own history where one already exists, there are no re-do’s even if I tried. It is in this important revelation that I am able to absorb the details in its vastness…that, of this moment in time, there is no going back. I have shared that concept to others for so long: to live life with no regrets, live life with intention, and honor oneself for who you are today, not of substance from yesterday or of notion for tomorrow – because today is happening NOW! 

Sometimes my travels have no signposts, or no “sentier de randonnee`” to follow, no maps, and of course, no GPS or phone! That alone scares most people I know, but without a plan, there is so much room for the creation of possibility and for getting lost. Getting lost slows time, way down! Getting lost is uncomfortable when we have become accustomed to watching microwaves with impatience, rushing through traffic to catch up to more traffic, frustrated with outdated technology, and not having time to listen to even those who are important to us. The discomfort of uncertainty demands a sense of fearlessness to push forward. When there are no signs, I just walk, explore, make mistakes, learn, and sometimes just sit still in the place offered to me – a vineyard, a waterfall, a river, a grove of olive trees; tasting the unpicked and ripened cherries, apricots, figs growing wild, letting water run over my tired feet, running through the deepest purple of lavender fields and the tallest (over my head) sunflower fields. And, suddenly, the path becomes clear in vision, I get my bearings, all because I sat still long enough and with patience to become available to the possibility. I rearrange my backpack on my shoulders, and continue.

I have captured a memory in each village I trek, a small stone (remembering that I have to carry their weight and the weight of subsequent stones for 64 more days). A true metaphor in life as well, right?! I label them with the memory of the moment in which I found them and then have moved on. So much like life: to label the memory, acknowledge the memory, and create a new one; collecting them for a later embrace and retelling of their stories to share with others, of another time, another place sometimes with a smile, sometimes in peace, sometimes in somber – but always from a different time in space that we can no longer recover in exactness. So, I move on, remembering, but not shackled to what once was, with one foot in front of the other, gleefully carrying the weight of the small stones of my life.