Beyond Even the Stars by Kevin A. Codd

Author:Kevin A. Codd [Codd, Kevin A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532641930
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2018-03-27T07:00:00+00:00

12

Bernadette

I enjoy a fine sleep, waking up at 6:00 am, quickly run through Laudes, pull myself and Gregory together, carry him and Click and Clack downstairs at 7:30 for breakfast in the restaurant. My host not only tends me with solemn courtesy, but far more importantly, he humbly apologizes for his regrettable outburst the night before. I don’t get all that he is saying, but the look on his face of shame is so painful that I catch the feeling of his apology perfectly. I respond, de rien, though I am not sure it is the correct expression for “apology accepted”, but it seems to work. In silence, he brings me my coffee and fresh sliced baguettes, fruit and yogurt, and orange juice.

I eat in silence out of respect for this man’s remorse, then I’m on my way out of Guérigny by 8:00. It is a beautiful day for walking, and I am feeling great. I am treated to several passages through dark woods of oak and chestnut, now special places for me as their small world of diminished light and heightened sound grant me a sort of rest from the glare of the greater world beyond. I can breathe more deeply under their green canopies. I can slow down without actually slowing down as I pass along their paths. In these naves of green and brown and subtle echoes I am one with myself, my earth, my God.

Before long I am at the outskirts of Nevers, the largest city I have walked into since Reims. Homes and businesses and traffic soon abound. In the muddle of streets, my pilgrim arrows disappear from posts and pillars, my own map is ambiguous, and I am left untethered as I bumble along looking for the city center. I ask a lady on the street for directions and follow to the right as directed but end up in a characterless subdivision, clearly not heading to the center of anything. I backtrack and then pass some kind of pilgrimage site, the Compostelle shell emblazoned on its façade; the place is locked, but it is the clue indicating I am back on the Chemin. Having to stop at intersections and wait for the illuminated green stick man to appear before I can continue plunges me into modernity. I dodge to the left and dip down a side street to the Église du Saint-Étienne. I tuck into its dark interior, and once within this womb of stone, I find the very same peace I enjoyed in the oak and chestnut woods earlier this morning. I unhook Gregory and set him and his sidekicks, Click and Clack, on the floor next to a great round column. The cool of the place plays off my sweat, giving me a second or two of chill. These columns and the stone arches and round ceilings above and the light softened by high windows are indeed like a forest; here too one breathes, hears, pauses, is cooled. Some tourists approach to ask if I am a pèlerin and if I have walked here from Vézelay.

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