Convergenza . . .

Convergence. I might have thought to title this post Roma, but it's never been about Rome. It's always been about the getting there, the period from the first step to the last step. And the journey didn't really start in Winchester either. It started six years before, a total of nine years walking, something a bit short of three thousand miles, when I stepped on the boat at Lindau Hafen, Germany, on the Bodensee, Lake Konstanz, and then off at Rorschach, Switzerland, nine years from that first step on the Jakobsweg, and continued on the Chemin St Jacques, the Camino Frances, the Camino del Norte, the Camino Portugese, in total the constituents of three arrivals at Santiago de Compostela and one to Finistere, and then the Pilgrim's Way, the North Downs Way, and finally the Via Francigena. I claim no bragging rights. I've met many who have done far more on routes far, far more difficult. If I've learned one thing, and I believe I've learned many things, whatever you accomplish, there is someone who's done more. Someone whose accomplishments amaze you. What drives them? What drives me?

That first step was taken when I had no intention of going further than Geneva. I just wanted to go for a long walk. I had been living in Zurich, walking in the  Alps every chance I could. I'd do day walks and then catch the train back home, or take a hotel for a few days and do hikes out and back. I'd sit outside an alpine hut at the extremis of that day's walk, eating some rösti and watching hikers continue over the saddle between two mountains and disappear below the ridge crest. I felt the tug. So one day I decided to do it, to take a long walk. Switzerland has many but as I investigated the alternatives, I became intrigued by the antiquity of the Jakobsweg, that complex of trails through Germany and Switzerland that ultimately tie into the myriad of paths that go to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest of Spain. So I decided to take that trail to Geneva. 

But that first year I discovered three things almost immediately: one meets interesting, wonderfully kind, generous people; you are constantly in the moment, no thoughts further than your next footstep, a meal, a shower and a bed; and, if you are lucky, you will learn a lot about yourself. 

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." J. R. R Tolkien, the Fellowship of the Ring. 

I had an inkling, though, that there might be something more to it than the summation of a large number of strides. The first entry in my first journal reads, "What will I discover?" Well, I will tell you. Not everything, and not in every detail. A lot of it is way too personal. But I will open myself up a bit. Sit back. This may take a while. 

My first inkling that this was going to be something very special was the first time I fell into a walking meditation. My feet were moving but on their own accord. I was someplace else entirely. A memory had come to me about an event in my past, an event I was always certain I had remembered correctly, an event where I felt I had been wronged in some way. But the recall was somewhat different than what I had usually remembered about the event. I saw instead how something I had said and done was contributory to the outcome. And then the meditation broke, I looked around and did not recall seeing a trail marker for some time. I gave myself another hundred paces in which if I could not confirm I was still on the right track, I would turn around and backtrack until I could. The loss of trail awareness is not the point, but the self discovery is. 

Over time and over the years, the meditations and the discoveries have been deeper, more meaningful, one building on the other, realization feeding reconsideration. While the memories and meditations have touched on many areas, the important discoveries have clustered around a few important threads: my personal spirituality, in other words, what do I believe; my personal history, my relationship with others, particularly my family, how I got to be the person I am, where certain recurring patterns in my behavior come from, and how I can break free from those behaviors I do not like; finding a deeper comprehension of the love I have for my wife; and where to find more meaningfulness in my life. 

I'm not going to discuss all of these, but one thread seems to have run out on this trip. I had a difficult relationship with my parents. Both of them. I didn't understand how difficult it really was. I was a pretty well behaved kid. There were a few notable outbursts but in general, I was not any sort of a problem child. I had not realized how that good conduct had been constructed from a web of expectations, unintended rejections, and very intentioned coercions. After a seminal event on the day of Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination – I was thirteen – my relationship with my father began to rupture, cracks slowly spreading over time, continuing into my adulthood until there was only a falsely cordial and almost wordless relationship. His death was a totally emotionless event for me. I have been trying to rehabilitate that relationship for a long time.

On the day I walked to San Gimignano, I was marking the distance on my GPS and in my mind. I could see the city's towers through the dust misted Tuscan morning air almost from the beginning of the walk. The first of nine miles fell behind me, 11% of the walk completed. The second mile passed, 22% completed. "At this rate, I will never get there," I joked to myself. Indeed, I was on a convergent but never ending journey, each mile another 11.11111111 (etc.) % to go, nine miles totaling 99.999999 (etc.) %. Each step got me closer but I would never reach 100%. I would never get to San Gimignano. Yet, of course I would. How would I cross that last infinitesimally small fraction of distance?

Over the years I've been walking, I'd considered my relationship with my father. I reconsidered many events, found fault in both of us, many errors, many misinterpretations, many intentioned slights. I came to understand the measure of his love and its limits. I began to see the currency in which he measured it. I had thought I would find that unconditional parental love I believed was there hidden below all these surface distractions. I think it was there for a while. I think it was gone for a long time.

My walk to San Gimignano morphed into a consideration of how far I had come and how far I could go. Given the breadth and depth of my considerations, I don't really think there is more to discover. It is what it is. I can still get choked up about lost opportunities but I cannot change what was, anymore than I could have walked over to that ghost I saw on a flight from somewhere to San Francisco more than thirty years ago without it disappearing in a mist of regret. To get to San Gimignano, to get to resolution, I simply must accept that I have arrived. 

The thread on this one has run out. Game over. I've mourned all I can. 

I am in Rome. Nine years walking completed. I will walk some more. I've more things to think about. 

Thanks for joining me.