Chapter 12: Lost & Found

I hold a pity party, nobody comes, and then I get hopelessly lost.

Three weeks before, when I headed out with Melanie and the kids, I had this great, unknown adventure ahead of me. I had an Oz.

But now, there’s no Oz. There’s me, and there’s walking. I know exactly what the next seven weeks hold. Everything is flipped. The adventure is all behind me now, and it will be ages before I see them again. I’m swan diving into a quarry pond of Alone.

The four of us walk a half-mile towards the first trail marker. We step over the tracks of a municipal train depot. In the overcast light, Toulouse is morning-after, hook-up-ugly and urban and dirty. Sunday morning trash cans are overflowing. Somebody’s sweater is abandoned in the street. If the depot doesn’t smell of urine, then it should. It’s probably not even safe for the three of them to walk through here to get back to the hotel.

We find the avenue that leads back to the Camino, and then, more quickly than I hoped, I spot the balisage trail markings. There it is again, my Camino, where I left it.

The children…