Thank you for your emails, letters and reviews

It has been immensely gratifying and humbling over the past year to read the letters, emails and reviews on Chapters and Amazon about my book A Journey of Days: Relearning Life’s Lessons on the Camino de Santiago. I wrote it mostly to tell people about my experiences on the Camino and to talk about the things that I thought about while I was there. As you know, it started as a set of daily emails that I sent home to my wife Carroll about what I was experiencing. Evidently I have been able to touch something in many people that makes them think about what is important in their life. When, after I came home, I wrote the “Life’s Lessons Relearned” section near the end of the book, I was careful not to tell others what they “should” do, but only what I learned of value to myself. It was not and is not my intent to preach to others.

A review which captures this idea well is one at Amazon.com from Mary Gauer, a dear friend from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She wrote in part:

“… What’s amazing is while Guy didn’t set out with the intention of having any major life epiphanies, his book allows us to have our own. Setting a goal, making a commitment, planning, implementing, overcoming obstacles with warmth and humor, letting go of ideas and plans that don’t work and finally achieving success – it’s what we forget we’re all capable of doing. To be reminded that generosity of spirit is as important as other forms of giving, gives a reader pause during these difficult times ….”

I do point out in the book that if you have a dream, don’t wait too long to make it a reality. Many people tell me that they have been inspired to act on their dream. Some are walking the Camino, others are making their unique dream come true. Every time someone tells me that they have been motivated to act because of what I have written, I am very happy and also very humble because I am starting to understand the power of the written word.

And I do reiterate that now, this moment, is the only time there is, so I don’t want to waste it pining for or feeling guilty about the past, or dreaming about something in the future. For me, it’s not that either of these views, backwards or forwards, is inherently bad, it’s just that they can paralyze me into inaction in the present.

So, what’s my point? I am thanking each of you who has written to me about the book for your inspiration to me. I am lifted a little by every review, every communication about what I have written. As I say in A Journey of Days, there is no such thing as too much reassurance. Thank you.

Why did I walk the Camino?

One of the questions that I now get asked a lot is; “Why did you decide to walk the camino?” It’s a good question and it deserves a thoughtful answer. For a long time I didn’t have an answer to this question. I first became aware of the camino about 10 years ago. But that is all it was – awareness. Then about five years ago, that is three years before I actually went to Spain, I started to feel a compulsion to walk it. I did not then know why, nor do I now.

What I do know is that the compulsion grew until I realized that I really wanted to do this. So I spent two years getting myself and my gear ready to walk. As I was walking on the camino, I wondered why I was there, and I had some ideas, but no convictions. No blinding insights, as in “Aha, so THAT’s why I’m walking!” Even after I came home, I still did not have a clear answer, but I do have some thoughts about it. I believe that it was a mix of curiosity and bravado. The curiosity part was partly I wondered whether I could actually walk a very long distance at my age, partly curiosity about the psychological impact of walking alone in a strange country for over a month and partly curiosity about whether there would be any spiritual overtones in walking a path that millions of pilgrims had walked for a millennium. The bravado part was thinking that I could walk over 700 kilometres at the age of 70. As it turned out … well, you know how it turned out.

By the way, I won’t be blogging every day … I don’t think … but I will keep up a steady stream of whatever crosses my mind. I find that I really enjoy knowing that people are reading what I write and evidently getting some value out of it. I would be happy to answer any questions that you pose to me.

Cheers

Guy

10 April 2009

One of the questions I often get asked is, when I walked the camino in the early spring of 2007, did I intend to write a book about the experience? The answer is no, not only did I not intend to write a book, I did not intend to even keep a journal. It was my wife, Carroll, who wanted me to keep a journal and when all her entreaties failed, she enlisted our daughter Meredith to help persuade me. Even then I was stubbornly unconvinced and it was not until a few days before I left home that one of them presented me with a small notebook that I could carry in a pocket. I took it with me because that was easier than arguing.

When I ended up in Pamplona for five days because my unaccompanied baggage, my backpack, had not yet arrived (that’s another story), I had lots of time to wander around old Pamplona, make notes about what I saw and send them home via the Internet. We were emailing a lot because we were trying to track down the backpack. By the end of the five days, when I finally got underway, Carroll emailed me that there were a lot of people reading the emails that I was sending and to please keep them coming. That level of interest in what I was doing encouraged me to keep the journal going and to send messages home … and those emails became the framework for the book, although neither one of us realized that at the time.