When I came home from Spain at the end of July, 2009, I was extremely fit. My husband especially commented on the strength of my wrists and I responded that this was from my fifth day.
It was. I pounded my walking poles on that day, up despised hills on a dusty path. You'll have to read my letter to Elvira in Chapter 5 to see what that was all about. It was a day of anger, or something beyond anger. It was a day of very strong emotion - such that I had not experienced before or since.
At the end of my letter to Elvira, after trying to explain a lot of things, I said this:
"At one point, as I was trying to collect myself on the path, a Spanish man quietly passed me on the left and looked at me directly. He meant to look at me, and he said, "Paso por Paso." I didn't know what he was saying. I now know that he was saying, kindly, "Step by Step." This is the Camino."
I got a letter in the mail today from a man who is in his nineties. This is part of what he said to me in five pages of beautiful script that are a gift to me to be cherished until my dying day:
"Thank you for the gift of The Camino Letters. I enjoyed it immensely, but also felt drained by it as I shared your highs and lows. Oddly enough it took me back to July 1944 when, with a draft of NCOs and soldiers I landed in Normandy and marched inland to somewhere in the bridgehead. We were burdened with all our kit and had no idea how far we had to go; it was Paso por Paso indeed! This is a book I shall keep and dip into again and again."
He ended his long letter by saying: "I think God is indeed using you as "an instrument of his peace."
Me of little faith.
Gosh. Life is this. This is life.
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