Da solo, l'ultima mattina in Toscana

Alone, the last morning in Tuscany. Patrick caught the bus from Radicofani to Chiusi yesterday afternoon, continuing by train to Rome. We had known from the start of this year's walk that we would not be finishing our journey together. Though the "dream" to walk the VF was mine, I invited Patrick to join me. Thus the "dream" became his as well. 

That the dreams might not be identical became evident in the accommodations we each needed to make. Patrick accommodated me in many ways, probably more than I realize. I accommodated him as well, in ways I am certain he does not realize. Through almost ninety days and nights we had only one "discussion."

My dream was to walk the VF. I'm pretty sure I will make it to Rome, but I will not have walked the entire way, as those who have been following along since the beginning might recall. I gave up that dream early in the walk, several days before Canterbury, when I made the really big accommodation to Patrick. One day we skipped a leg and took the train instead. The why's and wherefores aren't important now. It's history. I did it for friendship, though it hurt me deeply. But it's a slippery slope, and once you skip a leg there are many imagined good reasons to skip another. As I recall, we skipped three in total that first year, certainly less than fifty miles in a total of more than 1,500 from Winchester to Rome. 

When Patrick suggested skipping a leg this year, I demurred. "Why?" Patrick asked. "We've done it before." I told him " Not since we left the St. Bernard pass and entered Italy" – actually not since Besançon a couple of hundred kilometers earlier. A small victory for a dream reconfigured. 

Whether from the beginning or emerging at some later date, Patrick's dream was to walk the last stages and arrive in Rome with several others he holds dear, Colette and two long time friends, in addition to myself. I had always intended to walk the VF alone. But when Patrick was suffering through some difficult family issues, I invited him to join me. Knowing he is a man of faith, I thought the project would excite him and help him, and a pilgrimage to Rome would be a devotion, an extended prayer for intercession, an act of faith. 

For me, though, a walking quintet could never be in the cards. I know and like the people he will walk with. I stayed at the home of one during a visit to Paris. They are good people. But I know myself. It is not the way I want to walk to Rome. I expressed this to Patrick last year when the possibility arose that some of the others might join us for part of that year's walk. Perhaps I was too politic. Perhaps I should have been more direct, more definitive. But this could never be my dream. 

So once Patrick committed to his dream and we set out this year, we knew that the day would come when we would embrace, kiss each other's cheeks, and wish each other a "Buon Cammino." We didn't know it would be Radicofani but we knew it would come. Patrick arrived in Rome Saturday night, forty-eight hours before his flight back to Paris. That gave him an opportunity to attend mass at the Vatican on Sunday, something he had long wanted to do. I hope he found great comfort in it. 

Since my down day in Siena, we had come another sixty five miles, walking through luscious Tuscan countryside. My spirits were much improved despite temperatures in the nineties and a few climbs made more difficult by the heat.

The morning after Patrick left, I started out with Giuseppe and Carole, friends I had made last year, who I knew would be finishing their walk to Rome this year but who I thought I would not get to see due to their different starting point and starting date. But after checking into the spedale in Radicofani, doing my chores, and returning from hanging up my laundry, who should I see but Giuseppe and Carole just getting settled in. So my first morning alone without Patrick, my last morning in Tuscany, I walked with them for about an hour. I walk at a pace that is natural for me, my passo naturale, and that pace is somewhat faster than theirs. So I did not see them the rest of that day. That is one of the differences between walking with someone and meeting someone, even someone you know. Groups form and breakup as the hours and days go by. Patrick's pace and mine are close but not identical. I'm a bit faster but he has the capacity to walk farther. Though we walk apart much of the time we always stop at some point to wait for the other. We always eat together. We always stay the night in the same place (with one exception not relevant to the discussion here). 

That morning was my last morning in Tuscany. As I entered Lazio, the province in which Rome is located, on my way to Acquapendente, I ran into a number of other pilgrims, a Japanese woman Patrick and I had been occasionally walking with and two Italian pilgrims from the Venezia I had met the night before. The next day, from Acquapendente to Bolsena, I ran into Giuseppe and Carole again and a few other walkers.

It was not until today, from Bolsena to Montefiascone, that I walked entirely alone. 

I started out late. I did not see another pilgrim all day. I occasionally ran into someone out for a bit of exercise, a man walking his dog, a farmer tending to his crops, but I did not walk with anyone. I spent the day in woods, in vineyards or walking through agricultural estates, on country roads and even an impressive stretch of the ancient Roman road, the Via Cassia Consolare, Roman basoli paving beneath my feet, more than two thousand years old, weathered but otherwise the Roman road of antiquity. There were wonderful views on and off of Lake Bolsena, a volcanic caldera, below me. For most of the day the only sounds I heard were sounds of nature, not a single car for hours on end. 

But most of the day was spent in walking meditation, deep in my own thoughts, occasionally coming out of my reverie to check whether or not I was still on the path, and then, moments later, I was back in thought again. Many of the thoughts I had in prior years came back to me. The fact that I am nearing the end of the journey prompted other thoughts. I began to get clarity on the meditation I referred to in an earlier post, the one that occurred to me on my way to San Gimignano, and which I hope to expand on in a future post. I walked in near silence, gravel crunching beneath my boots. My mind was calm. Tranquillo. 

Patrick and I have had some really great days walking the VF. Our reception and send off at Canterbury was memorable. Our hiking the alps and reaching the top of the San Bernard Pass together, ending our first year's walk in a triumphant embrace, was fantastic. We had several really glorious days this year walking in Tuscany. But I must tell you: today is right up there, one of the most satisfying days of the entire pilgrimage.