Ten years ago, I sat on a bridge in France and ate my breakfast. The Spouse and I were on the cusp of a long walk across Spain, but we lingered that morning over pain aux raisins. The weather was bright and warm, like summer itself was lingering on that bridge as long as it could, not wanting to let the moment come when it would get to its feet and begin a different journey.
That was the end of September, the start of something new.
That afternoon, when we registered as pilgrims and received our pilgrim passports, we were asked why we were undertaking this pilgrimage. For reasons religious, spiritual or “touristic?” Not a question that elicits a firm answer in this or any other century, I think, but a good question to consider at that stage of the journey. I seem to remember being asked the question again at the end of the road, but I can’t recall if my answer was the same or different. Or what I answered at all.
It took us one month to walk from the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela and in the 10 years since, the pilgrim road has become a lens through which we see the days before us. Not an original image, of course. It is one of the oldest metaphors, and perhaps that adds to its power. Roads are made by walking, and knowing that so many have found strength and encouragement in the image of the road strengthens us for the very long walk ahead.
Since that bridge morning, three children have joined us along the way and we’ve moved house half a dozen times. Now here we are again, another sunny autumn, another set of first steps.
The kids have finally been offered places in a school here in Cardiff, and Sept. 28 was day one. Which meant our weekend before that was full of errands and emotions. All that back-to-school shopping squeezed into one Saturday one month late. And as well as the sock department, we were tackling closure.
Starting something new does mean that the old—the familiar—really has come to an end. Both the older kids tiptoed around the finality of this all weekend, taking turns leaning into my shoulder and muttering questions and hopes. I wonder if they spoke with each other about all this. I wanted to suggest it a few times, but then it would feel forced, persuaded. But I hope that they do find ways to unravel these tangling hearts together.
Like that morning 10 years ago, today was bright and warm. Plum and I played in the garden with his wooden trains. Then he sat under my desk (drawing on the legs and wall with purple marker as I later discovered) as I wrote for a while and then we made cranberry oatmeal cookies to take to the school at pick-up time. I had a sense of the life of our home carrying on without the older kids in its own simple rhythms, but also preparing for their return when we’ll sit around the table together and they will tell us how the road had opened for them today. I can’t say it takes more courage to be at home waiting, but I must say that it does take courage.
This is the start of a different stage of the journey for them—in a different school and with different people. We don’t know how long this stage will last or what they will learn along this road. I pray that there will be welcome and challenge, friends and nourishment that will help them to deepen who they are, strengthen and grow. As with every stage and every pilgrimage, I pray that they will know God along the way, that they will meet the light that forms all creation in the details of their days and that, all along this road, they will learn the work and the delight of love.
