Chapter 9: Puss 'n Boots

This is happy.

Photo by Les Argonautes on Unsplash

I’ve been walking for two weeks and covered over 200 miles. I’ve travelled through the hills of the Alpilles, past Arles, past Montpellier, and into Lodève. I am now fifty-some kilometers east of Toulouse.

I’ve continued to purge every item in my backpack that isn’t essential to my warmth, security, cleanliness, or nourishment. I’m not taking pictures of the trip. I’m not keeping a journal. When I move onto a new page in my Camino guidebook of pilgrim lodging and route maps, I tear the used page out to make the book lighter. No matter how subtrivial the item, when I can unload it, I do. This letting go of things is my fanatical religion.

The daily habits of a walking pilgrim have set in. My entire life is built on simplification and repetition. I get up at 5:30 in the morning. If there are other pilgrims in the hostel, I dress quietly in the dark, check my sleep area by the light of my cellphone for forgotten items, throw on my pack, and head out into…