Author: Pete Schloss
You can’t read my mind, but you can read my “Thoughts”.
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Thanks. Pete Schloss
In the years after our children had grown to adults, but before they were parents, I held the belief that we had accomplished everything that was really important. It was my way of finding reconciliation with the impermanence of life.
We had given our children the tools to engage life: a good work ethic, a strong moral code, higher education, and health within the limits of our ability and their good fortune. It seemed to me that this was everything that was truly important and anything more that life allowed was “icing on the cake”.
I declared this at dinner one evening. At table were good friends, one a youthful grandmother. She took exception to my words. Imprudently, I persisted and her responding objections grew more vociferous. Finally, our respective spouses interceded to redirect our dinner conversation to the peace of calmer waters.
In the years since, we have had the good fortune to become grandparents. I have watched Christine grow into her role as a grandmother and I have witnessed the dimension that she has added to the experience of childhood for the “little people”. It is clear to me now that important work remained for us in life as grandparents to these children. I can scarcely imagine life for us without them, or life for them without Christine.
Although it has been more than 10 years since that dinner conversation, it often returns to my thoughts when I see the exchange of unconditional love and respect between Christine and the grandchildren. I am also beneficiary of the children’s affection, but there is an intangible depth to the relationship that they share with their grandmother.
You were right Jane… Mea Culpa.
Peace Everyone. Pete
Approaching our next departure, we have begun considering what it is. People with whom we have spoken have usually referred to our previous outings as “Trips”, “Vacations”, and “Journeys”. Often the word “adventure” is thrown in as well.
Driving back from New Mexico we took time to discuss and deconstruct those descriptions. We concluded the following:
• A Trip is any travel that takes one from point “A” to point “B” without regard to distance or purpose. It is the barest transport of a body from here to there. Purpose is irrelevant as is the quality of the experience.
• A Vacation is a departure from the routine of one’s life. It may or may not involve travel, such as a “staycation”. It evinces an intention to temporarily detour from one’s duties without shirking one’s responsibilities.
• A Journey conjures up the image of travel that is of an extended duration. “Journey” has the character of uniqueness relative to one’s prior experiences. It is self-directed, assumed as a personal responsibility, and not left into the hands of another. “Journey” can result in a redirection of one’s life and perhaps the lives of others.
Our travels these last 3 years have rarely just been trips. Going to the grocery store is a trip. Traveling to visit my mother in Illinois is a trip. But once our trailer is in tow it becomes something more than a trip. I look in the rearview mirror and see only the white fiberglass of “Rigel”, the SUV accelerates with a grudging reluctance, but my spirits soar… Not a Trip.
In the last 3 years we have covered over 60,000 miles with our trailer, “Rigel”. We have camped in 49 States, 8 Canadian Provinces, and the Yukon Territory. This has been our reality and not a departure from the routine of our life… Not a Vacation.
In 3 weeks we depart for our next outing. This one extends for 3 months, crosses the Atlantic Ocean by ship, sees us visiting up to 23 nations and territories, and includes approximately 350 miles of travel by foot. Very little has been planned in advance as many of our decisions about destinations will be made on a day-by-day basis. Everything that we need will be carried on our backs with Christine’s pack weighing about 16 pounds and mine about 18 pounds. Extended? You bet! Unique? Check! Self-directed? To be sure! Is there a potential to redirect the course of our lives and to impact the lives of others? Hopefully! So, it must be a “Journey”? Yes, but there is more.
In 2013 we walked the 525 miles of the French route of the Camino de Santiago to Santiago Spain. From Medieval times this has been one of the 3 great pilgrimages in Christendom. For me the Camino began as an item to be checked off of my “bucket list”. I was oblivious to the notion of “Pilgrimage”. However, ignorance of gravity does not prevent one from “falling” to its effects. After a few days walking I became captive to the spiritual qualities of the Camino. I now understand that “Pilgrimage” is an intentional journey to a spiritual place during which the pilgrim is open to being changed within. “Life changing” is an overused and underappreciated term. However, it accurately describes our experience in 2013. Among the eyes reading this are those of many who live around the world and who became our lifetime friends when we met walking the road to Santiago.
Our upcoming Journey includes the aspect of Pilgrimage. We are again walking to Santiago but this time we begin the walk in Porto, Portugal. It is difficult to avoid developing expectations for 2018 from our experiences in 2013. Expectations are the garden from which disappointments are harvested, and that may be the single greatest challenge for me on this coming Journey/Pilgrimage.
Peace Everyone! Pete
We are nearing 3 weeks from departure for an “epic” (even by our standards) adventure to Europe. I will be posting more details soon, however a “highlight” is another walk on the Camino de Santiago Compostela. This time it will be the 150-mile-long Portuguese route from Porto to Santiago Spain.
I have been asked more than once, “Is it safe… aren’t you afraid of crime?”
Spain is a county with a population of nearly 47 million souls. In 2016 there were fewer than 300 homicides in the entire country. Metro Kansas City has a population of approximately 1 million people (2010 census). In 2017 there were 208 area homicides.
Sadly, compared to where we live, we feel pretty safe walking in Spain.
Peace Everyone. Pete
As I drove home from my regular morning visit to the gym I saw 4 different “Estate Sale” signs. I know that there is a defacto “Garage Sale Season”, but I have never heard of Estate Sales being seasonal.
It occurred to me that each of those sales represents a house full of mementoes with a life-time of associated memories. In the course of a weekend the owners’ possessions will be disbursed like the windblown seeds from a dandelion.
It may be a kindness for an owner to have passed away before the sale, each item falling under the auctioneer’s gavel as a mere chattel. Imagine a couple’s pain as the rocker that saw small children fall to sleep in a mother’s arms is unceremoniously hauled off by a dealer who sees only new upholstery and profit in its possession. Think of the tears that might fall from the eyes of one who sees family photos, the ragged stuffed animals of a long-grown child, a rusted bicycle, a tarnished trophy… cast into a pile destined for the trash dump.
Christine’s 99-year-old father, Bill, returned to his Kansas City roots from his Florida retirement home. He was a refugee from Hurricane Irma. The accumulation of 75 years married to the love of his life was already culled to the barest of items. Things precious to him and few others. After nearly 3 months with us Christine made arrangements for him to acquire a wonderful 1-bedroom apartment in an assisted living community. It was complete with a living room, kitchen, and a balcony with a view. However, it was just empty space until 2 sturdy young men from Ikea spent 4 hours creating furnishings from flat boxes, and turned the space into a residence.
The place held no more charm for Bill than a motel until his few personal items were hung upon the walls. Pictures of 2 deceased children, a deceased brother’s picture, a 4-H lifetime achievement award, a “100,000 Mile Club” certificate from TWA with the watermark image of a 4-engine prop plane of 1950’s vintage, and of course images from a life lived well with his wife, now deceased. These and other similar items changed the sterile residence into a home. Bill often walks the perimeter of his apartment, stopping before each of these things which are the playback buttons of treasured moments, people, or places in time. Bill has spontaneously voiced his pride in his new home. In reality it is his pride in the old things that have a new place to share with him.
Someday, many of the “treasures” that Christine and I have accumulated will become the possessions of strangers, or merely add to the volume of a landfill. In any case, whatever their fate, memories are not included.
Peace Everyone. Pete
