Strange Times Be These!
About now I was suppose to be building up my walking fitness in preparation for departing to England to begin the Via Francigena in early May. I'd intended to walk the 2,260 kms from Canterbury to Rome with the plan to celebrate my birthday when I arrived July 25th. After a busy winter spent figuring out a unique route across France, making arrangements to meet a few of my walking friends along the way and even learning some Italian at the university things began to slowly change. The Covid-19 virus decided to make it's initial appearances in China. I noticed, but it was far away and not the first virus to start in that part of the world. I continued with my planning, booked a one way flight and sorting out the details for the early part of the trip; where to find a credential, connected with Canterbury Cathedral and a place or two to stay. All the while the virus continued in the headlines as it slowly began to move into Asia. The alarms began to ring more loudly as the virus took wing (literally) and arrived in Europe and in Washing State in America. I did as most folks with a firm plan planted in their brain usually do. I tried to figure out what adjustments I'd have to make to avoid the virus if it stayed in the pockets it was developing in Northern Italy and elsewhere. However, as time went by it became clear that I wasn't destined to walk the Francigena in 2020. I waited until late March to see if things might suddenly improve. I mean, no one really had a real handle on the virus's properties and inclinations. Fresh information kept being released daily, some of it even correct. WHO downgraded their risk assessment to pandemic level and things began to go downhill from there. Some countries did a decent job of sorting things out, with limited information. Others reacted too slowly and before I knew it Italy, my beloved Spain and even France were in big trouble. And it was getting worse daily. As they say, the rest is history, and soon it was clear that I'd have to postpone my walk until at least 2021. Not a big deal, but for sure disappointing. More importantly in the present moment is that family and friends in Europe and elsewhere are experiencing a difficult time. There are currently more important things to worry about than mot walking a camino. It will still be there waiting for me when the time is right: )
We made the decision to socially isolate ourselves March 15th (4 weeks ago!) and our gym closed shortly afterwards. Seemingly almost everything else began to shut down pretty soon after that including schools, pubs and restaurants. This was looking serious indeed...no pubs?! Of course it is very serious and we decided to give the virus the respect it deserved. Our political leadership in Canada made it increasingly clear that we were to socially isolate and only go out for essential trips to the grocery store if possible. The whole toilet paper hoarding thing happened along the way. What the hell was that all about?
Given our fitness outlet was shut down and yoga also ended suddenly we turned to our remaining lifestyle pillar. Walking. Fortunately our wonderful Provincial Health Officer is encouraging people to get out and walk respecting 'social distancing', words that have become synonymous with covid-19. We had been walking all winter and happily began to extend our daily walks. On one such occasion a few weeks ago I began to thing about what a virtual camino might look like. As we passed the 164 km point (I log my walking) since we began to socially isolate, I pointed out to Annemarie that if we were walking the Frances we would have reached Logroño. That started up discussions about some wonderful and not so wonderful experiences we'd had there during our two camino visits (2013 & 2018).
The next day as I walked I thought about what a virtual camino might look like. I knew that we were going to walk anyway as we had been told that our virus isolation might go on for many weeks. So a plan was hatched to walk the Camino Frances. The Frances was our very first camino, and we began walking it on September 16, 2013. We had met and become fast friends with so many wonderful folks; Ken, Neil, Sarah, Peter, David, Jen, Marianne in particular. It was very special, and for me only ever again repeated the very next Spring when I soloed the Via de la Plata. I've met other nice folks on many of my other walks, but of those I've stayed in touch with only a few. After the 2013 camino I returned home determined not to loose touch with these pilgrims and I began to email each of them. They even wrote back! I'm pleased to say that almost all of them have become cherished friends and we have traveled and been able to see most at least once, some several times. A true gift.
So I had the idea of a virtual camino solidly in my head. The only thing was to pick a few of our friends without it becoming unnecessarily complex and to then write and see if there was an interest. I figured that to make things easier that I would limit the group to those who had remained in touch with each other and actually knew the same group. I really wanted to include everyone, but not everyone knew each other so for simplicity I settled on Neil, Sarah, Ken and ourselves. Hopefully I've not hurt any feelings, and if I have then please forgive me, and if you're really interested then of course join in. Much to my surprise (in retrospect I don't know why) everyone wanted to play along and there was genuine excitement! I suggested that there were no real rules as long as we were all willing to walk. Distance mattered not at all. Ken is still on the Canadian prairies where it's still darn cold, Neil and Sarah are in Australia where it's early Fall and we live on the West Coast of Canada where it definitely is Spring (cut my lawn today). So lot's of time zones to plan around.
We agreed that no matter how far each person walks each day where they live that we would all plan to arrive at the same place for each night. Just like we often did while on Camino. We have agreed to meet once a week via Zoom to enjoy a beverage just like after a day on camino to share stories and stuff. The stories have already begun to flow via email!! Annemarie and I decided to take the bus back to St. Jean Pied de Port and start over again with everyone else. Who really cares? It's a virtual camino and if we actually walk 500 kms or 1,200 kms where we each live it really doesn't matter. What matters is having some fun together during a difficult time in a shared community where we all care about each other. Something to take our minds of the problem we all share and to help give purpose to our daily walking. It can get a bit boring walking the same routes and staying close to home as our politicians have requested.
I'll continue the experience on my next post. We are all in Zubiri tonight!!
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