Pardon the big marathon reference here, but this is somewhat the feel. Over the past weeks I’ve felt as though I might never see the starting line, not to even speculate on the finish! Now my corral no. 15 has inched up, start by start, within sight of the starting line. It’s getting real. I fly away to London, then Biarritz, FR in a couple of days, embarking from St. Jean Pied de Port on a 500 mile journey which I am still a little reluctant to call a pilgrimage, an attitude sure to change once I’m crossing the Pyrenees by the same route taken by Charlemagne and Napolean in times long ago.

I picked up the Robert MacFarlane book, “The Old Ways”, after having set it aside months ago, and leafed to the chapter in which he examines the practice of walking paths, and why.

He writes: “The words ‘pilgrim’ and ‘pilgrimage’ have become, at least to secular ears, tainted with a tiresome piety. But the people I was meeting on my walks were inspiring and modest improvisors. All were using walking to make meaning for themselves – some simply, some elaborately; some briefly, some life-dominatingly – and I couldn’t find a better name for them than pilgrims.”

I am sure I will learn a great deal on my camino and perhaps will finish comfortable to be called a pilgrim. But now the starting gun is about to sound, and I’ve still a few more miles to go before the official mile zero. I will likely see you next from another time zone.