Listen

My walk to Compostello lasted a week. On the morning of the eighth day, the Husband rang me on my cell phone. There was a medical emergency in the family. I stood in the woods shaking. My friends said they’d help get me to the train station in Pau.

Lessons learned from the eight day walk.

1. There’s no place like home.
2. It is the first inclination of people to be friendly and helpful . . . so trust them.
3. I can eat anything I want, in the quantities I want, if I just exercise enough.
4. Nothing much matters on this earth except love.


I knew all of that before I left; but all of those lessons were reinforced and drilled home to me during my week of walking the Trail.

I learned that it’s much more pleasurable to pay attention and enjoy where I am at the moment.

How Zen. How Simple. How difficult to live in the moment.

But when you’re struggling to take a step on blistered feet in scorching heat, that’s all you can do . . . live in the moment. Take a step. Take another step.

Every moment is a lesson . . . I just have to be quiet and listen to be rewarded. Whether it’s in a dingy little hotel where the room is too hot and the traffic noise is too loud to allow for sleep; or whether I’m sitting in the elegant courtyard of Eugenie les Bains sipping a Kir Royale. Soak it all up.

One hot afternoon, my friend Marilyn and I were walking on a path that cut through a wheat field. Marilyn and I did most of our talking in the morning, so the afternoons were pretty quiet. Marilyn was a good bit ahead of me, so I wasn’t much aware of her presence. The wind was rustling the heads of the wheat and made the most soothing sound. I had never heard anything quite like it and I was raised on a farm and ranch.

I was enveloped by a rustling sea of wheat. Mother Earth was hugging me. The toasty smell of the wheat filled my nostrils. The soothing whispering calmed my soul. The undulating hills brought me great pleasure.

LISTEN TO THE WHEAT FIELDS, it all said to me.

I couldn’t get the thought out of my head: LISTEN TO THE WHEAT FIELDS. I trudged on in the heat: LISTEN TO THE WHEAT FIELDS.

Listen to the wheat fields, listen to the trees, listen to your husband, listen to everyone you meet, listen to your son, just be quiet and listen and you will reap great joy.

Last weekend I was in the Drôme for a wedding. I listened to the lavender fields and the bees that populate them. I soaked up their luscious scent. I was walking on the asphalt road. The sun was just beginning to peek over the eastern mountains. I waved to a farmer on his hay baler. I smiled. I wanted for nothing else . . . everything is perfect as it is. It always is.

On the way home the highway, crowded with vacationers and truckers, was perfect. Asphalt had never looked so good.

Nirvana awaited when we arrived back at the farm. My husband, son, and a friend were with me in the car. The two dogs were waiting for us on the porch. The sheep were grazing in the field. The flowers were blooming bigger than when we had left two days earlier. The zucchini was running wild.

Listen to the wheat field. Enjoy the bliss.