It has been ages since I posted in the blog, and many of my readers may no longer be checking up on it anymore. Forgive me for that. Those of you who still stop by, thank you! This post took me a long time to write, and in the meantime some big events happened in my life, including finding someone who has changed my life, quitting my former job, and moving south to Kobe.
Still trying to regain my feet and start walking again! Mountains were the reason I had journeyed halfway around the world to these steep, verdant slopes of the Pyrenees. To spend the month walking. And so it was time to leave Lescun, no matter how much I had fallen in love with the place. It was different when I was younger and healthy, but diabetes changed all that. I woke at dawn and hefted my pack stuffed to the extension collar with boxes and food cans and packages of mostly fresh food, like sausages, bread, cheese, and vegetables.
I grunted as I lifted the pack from where it stood against the frame of the front door. I left a note for Stewart, and stepped out onto the road. Morning sunlight cast a golden glitter across the fields and dew-covered walls and rooftops, and rose into the East with a silent shout that filled my heart with song.
I whistled as I strode past the still doorways and windows, finally on my way. Finally walking! Ah, that feeling of skirting empty fields alight with the singing of birds and the small, far off bleating of sheep! No one else was on the road, so I had the silence to myself, and I could hear my shoes scuffing the gravel underfoot, and the creak of the pack under all that weight. Off in the distance rose the shining white teeth of the high ridges, white and concrete grey in the sun.
My breath puffed in white billows in front of my face, and I could feel that morning sun burn against my cheek, my forearm, and legs. It was the time of day when insects, still held in suspended animation from the night chill, slowly stirred, and awoke to the sun. I walked past their spherical eyes, reflected in their vision, and feeling the swing of my arms and legs leading me up the road, toward the trailhead. After all the people at the refuge last night, this time alone left a feeling of suddenly being cast adrift.
