I am tired, nearly exhausted, but still I cannot sleep for more than an hour or two. For months now, I’ve been traveling alone, moving ever westward from Bharat, my natal land of light and knowledge. That place seems like a long-ago dream: its moist heat, its coconut palms; its gentle coastline; its piquant spices. Now, every day, I journey on alone, traveling ever westward across holy rivers, following the curve of a great sea, through putrid marshlands and across vast deserts, following a heavenly vision that is almost invisible by day but a beacon by night, a bright light in an inky, inscrutable sky.

All my life, I have been a watcher of stars. I have always been pushed forward by my own curiosity. My mind seeks to know; my heart longs to understand. All the answers to the questions of men are written in the stars, and it has fallen to me to decipher their meaning. But sometimes, the stars speak a language I struggle to comprehend. They tease and cajole: one small measure of time and I believe I understand them, then the next, all is gibberish. Or worse: stillness. Utter silence.

For months now, there has been a new, bright star in the heavens, one I’ve never seen before. For many nights, I peered upward, pondering its meaning. It seemed to beckon—no, summon—me, so one night, I decided to leave my home and follow it. Now, I think it might be a harbinger signifying the birth of a new king, but a king of whom, a kingdom where?

Should the star lead me to this new king, I decided to bring a gift with me—a silver vessel containing a liquid I concocted myself: an extract of the gummy resin derived from the small, thorny trees that grow all over Bharat. I obtained it by wounding the trees with a sharp knife, a process which caused them to bleed a liquid not unlike the blood of a man. What flowed forth from these wounds I call myrrh and, when mixed with a draught of posca or wine, it produces a most pleasing soporific effect. Taken in large doses, its tincture can reduce or even put an end to the pain and suffering of sickness or injury, even the scorpion sting of death. Imagine that: a soothing balm that can overcome death!

For the past several days, I have caught distant glimpses of another traveler whose route seems parallel to my own. He, too, seems to be alone; perhaps, if he is companionable, we should travel together. It would be comforting to share this strange journey with a kindred soul. Why, I ask, journey separately through life when it is possible to share ideas or conversation with someone whose perspectives or experiences are different from one’s own? Separation leads to oblivion, but traveling through time together, we can rise like the sun in the east, the promise of another day, the renewal of life, victory over death.

Perhaps this journey is foolishness, utter foolishness. A cosmic joke. Life begins, life ends. In between, we pass through the mountains and valleys of our days one-by-one, so why chase a star leading me who-knows-where? But I tell you this: I had no choice. I was compelled to travel in this star’s wake, seeking an answer to a question I cannot begin to articulate.

We shall see. One way or another, this journey, like life itself, will end. Perhaps when it does, I will understand. But in the meantime, I will seek out this fellow traveler, hopefully transforming my solitary journey into one of fellowship, or—who knows?—perhaps even friendship. Then, even if my bright star should tumble from heaven, its flame extinguished, at least I will not have travelled this mysterious road so weary, so alone.

Everything is written in the stars. 

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

I wish I spoke the language of inanimate objects. Think of the stories they could tell…

A grandfather clock stands in the corner of our living room, surrounded by a pile of the grandkids’ toys that have washed up against its sturdy base like sea foam along the tide line. It has been in that corner for the last thirty-plus years, but that’s only its most recent iteration. It originally came into the family as a wedding gift to “Gram” and “Pop,” my wife’s maternal grandparents, when they were married sometime around 1920. Crafted by the J.E. Caldwell & Co. in Philadelphia, the clock made its way to Washington, bundled coffin-like on top of a car, where it would steadily tick away the seconds of their lives, tolling the hours and the half-hours, day after day, year after year until Gram died in 1988. (Pop died in 1971.)

Even then, it still wasn’t ours. Gram’s original intention was that it should go to David, one of my wife’s older brothers. But at that time, David was living at the beach and it was deemed that salt air would not be conducive to the clock’s delicate inner workings or the cabinets fine finish. My wife volunteered to temporarily house the clock on her brother’s behalf, but David eventually moved to California and no one was willing to undertake the cost of shipping it across the country. But now David is gone, and so the clock remains here with us, looking over the shoulders of our own little lives.

The clock is a comfort to us on many levels. It reminds my wife of her beloved Gram and her brother David, self-appointed president of the Shenanigans Club. In the house in which I grew up in Pittsburgh, we, too, had a grandfather clock in the hallway, and so this one brings back memories of my own childhood back in Dreamtime. Its steady ticking soothes me during the day, and when I hear its sonorous chime in the middle of a dark night, I know where and who I am.

Oddly, grandfather clocks are by nature temperamental timekeepers. Maybe it’s because they have so many things to count: seconds, minutes, and hours; days of the week; phases of the moon. We’re content to let ours focus on one essential thing: keeping good time which it faithfully does with remarkable good and accurate grace. We can always look up at the sky to determine the phase of the moon.

Perhaps because I’m the tall one in our house, it has fallen to me—or perhaps I’ve just risen to the occasion—to wind the clock and keep it running smoothly. There are two pendulums—one for the timekeeping mechanism and one for the chime mechanism. I wind each once a week. My wife recently referred to me as the “steward of the clock,” a moniker of which I’m quite proud. Just as Robert Frost knew that one could do worse than be a swinger of birches, I’m perfectly content to be simply a steward of the clock. The job makes me a timekeeper, too.

I suppose that as one grows older, a clock’s gentle message of the flight of time grows ever louder. I like to write within ear-shot of our clock but I often get lost in my words and don’t hear the seconds flying past. At this stage of life, that’s probably a good thing; soon enough, everything will fall silent.

I wish I could speak the language of inanimate objects, specifically the dialect of our grandfather clock. Think of the stories it could tell…

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

When November arrived wearing shorts and flip-flops, I was lulled into believing that winter was still weeks away, and that I didn’t need to bring in the porch plants or shut off the hose bib. But then, just a couple of days ago, Buffalo was buried under several feet of lake-effect snow, Notre Dame and Boston College played football in a blizzard, and on a recent frosty morning, the very first thing I did upon waking was build a fire in the fireplace. Suddenly, it’s cold again.

The second thing I did that same morning was make soup: butternut squash soup with a liberal sprinkling of curry powder and some frozen peas and carrots. Chili and corn bread make a delicious winter dish and so does beef stew, but what’s more filling and better for you on a cold day than a big bowl of hot soup? Tomato bisque, clam chowder, chicken noodle, consommé; a steaming mug of soup is just what the doctor ordered. Fuel for the belly and, as any Jewish mother will remind you, good for the soul.

Soup has been around a long time. Our cave ancestors figured out how to boil water with hot rocks, and that plants or nuts tasted a lot better when liquified in it. In the 16th Century, street vendors in Paris sold a highly concentrated but inexpensive concoction they called ‘restaurant’ (meaning “something restoring”) and touted it as an antidote to physical exhaustion. A couple hundred years later, an enterprising Parisian opened a shop specializing in these steaming bowls and suddenly the word ‘restaurant’ had a more expansive meaning: any establishment devoted to eating. Thank you, soup!

Over on this side of the ocean, the first colonial cookbook, published in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1745, contained several recipes for soup. Some thirty years later, another cookbook called “The Frugal Housewife” devoted an entire chapter to the savory subject of soup. In the 19th Century, waves of European immigrants arrived on these shores, bringing with them all manner of new recipes for hearty soups, just what we all needed to build a new country. 

The soup market boomed in the late 19th Century with the invention of canning. Suddenly making soup was easy, and almost overnight, it became a commercial success. In 1897, Mr. Campbell introduced Americans to a condensed version of his tangy tomato soup and today, that rich, red treat is still America’s favorite. Second and third prize go to Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom and Chicken Noodle; last year, we devoured about 2.5 billion bowls of those three alone!

Now, soup has its own international alphabet that runs the gamut from Aguadito, a Peruvian green soup that includes peas, carrots, cilantro and bites of chicken which is reputedly a good cure for a hangover, to Zurek, a Polish sour rye soup made with sausages, traditionally served in bowls made of bread. In between, there is bouillabaisse and borscht; gazpacho, goulash, and gumbo; spicy Vietnamese Phö and Philadelphia Pepper Pot, made with tripe. There are national specialties like Cock-a-leekie soup from Scotland, as well as regional delicacies like our very own Cream of Crab Soup, liberally seasoned, of course, with Old Bay. There are concoctions with exotic names like Bird’s Nest Soup, Egg Drop Soup, or Mulligatawny. The list goes on…

Yesterday, the grandkids came over for an after-school visit so I decided to conduct a little market research. “What’s your favorite soup?” I asked. They didn’t hesitate. “Maryland Crab with big lumps of crab meat” they all shouted—after all, they’re Marylanders. My wife was in the room helping the kids write letters to Santa, but I didn’t need to ask her; she can’t resist French Onion Soup with extra cheese. Me? I thought about stopping at the letter V for vichyssoise, a cold puree of potatoes, leeks, and cream, invented by a French chef at the Hotel Ritz in New York, but that’s a summertime favorite, out of season today.

But first things first. I went out to fetch some logs from the wood pile and rebuilt the fire in the hearth. Then I began to simmer a pot one of my favorite winter soups: Chippewa Soup, a redolent and creamy blend of tomato and pea soups, slightly curried and flavored with bay leaves, a smoked ham bone and some sautéed vegetables, strained away before serving. I’ll serve it with seasoned croutons, a hint of sherry, and a dollop of sour cream. Bon appetit!

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

 

I was eavesdropping on a conversation among some very tech-savvy friends recently when I heard someone say, “I work in a zero trust environment.” I had been drifting in and out of their conversation like a falling leaf, but suddenly, I was all ears: “zero trust environment?” What in the heck is that?

It turns out that Zero Trust is a strategic approach to cybersecurity that secures an organization by eliminating implicit trust and continuously validating every stage of a digital interaction. That’s almost Greek to me, but I can at least discern a hint of its meaning. We all know we live in a digital world infested with hackers and identity thieves who apparently have no other purpose in life than to prey on those among us who are, like me, both digitally dumb and inherently trusting. In theory, zero trust strategy is our shield against these dark-web predators.

My digital needs are minimal at best…or so I think. I send texts and emails, bank online, scroll through FaceBook and Instagram, take digital images with my camera, even write these weekly Musings on my laptop. I’m careful about creating strong passwords and sharing personal information, and if I receive a phone call from a number I don’t recognize, I either don’t answer it or simply hit the delete button. That said, I generally approach the internet from a position of guarded trust which, if my tech-savvy friends are to be believed, is either childishly naive at best or unbelievably stupid at worst. According to them, I should trust no one and only approach the internet on tiptoe through Dante’s door—you know, the one marked “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.”

I’m no Pollyanna but neither do I consider myself a particularly wary person. It seems to me that if some modicum of trust doesn’t underlie all human interactions, then we really are living in hell. When I’m driving down the road, I’ll stay in my lane and I trust you’ll stay in yours, but maybe that’s now a dangerous assumption. The Beltway is indeed an infernal place; you never know when someone will swerve into your lane, so driving defensively has become the first rule of the road. Whether accidental or intentional, bad things do happen to good people, on the highway, on the internet, and in life.

Sigh.

I grew up in a world far different from the one I now live in. We generally didn’t lock our doors, or wear helmets when we rode our bikes, or use seat belts. We played in the street until dark on summer evenings, we spoke to strangers, and we even opened containers that weren’t secured with twelve safety seals or childproof caps. Somehow, we survived. But now—and I get this—we live in a world where all the underlying assumptions are built on either safety or fear, certainly not on trust. Are we better off for that? Probably, but something important has been lost along the way: our inherent trust in each other, our common denominators. Maybe that’s why things are so out of whack now: we’re mired in zero trust.

Our digital world isn’t a grandfather clock that can be turned back an hour on the first Sunday in November, and maybe the good old days weren’t all that good anyway. Life has gotten oh-so complicated and I grudgingly accept that. But I sure hope that we aren’t doomed to living out our days in a zero trust environment, whether of the cyber or human ilk. I still want—still need—some measure of implicit trust to validate my life transactions.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

On an unseasonably warm November day last week, my wife and I tackled the one autumnal chore I really don’t enjoy: we raked leaves. We used the biggest rake we owned, even borrowed a neighbor’s leaf blower, but still the task went on and on and on. In fact, it soon became apparent that for every leaf we raked or blew, ten more came drifting down from the sky, and even though the pile at the end of the driveway grew to mountainous proportion, the blanket of leaves still covering the ground never seemed to shrink. 

But there are some tasks that just have to be done, no matter how daunting or impossible they seem. So we raked on, perspiring in the warm November sunshine, focusing on building our leaf pile and not worrying about all the leaves littering the ground, let alone the ones still raining down from above, or even the ones stubbornly clinging to the trees overhead that were laughing at us. 

Later that afternoon, the grandkids came over and as all kids are wont to do, they saw the leaf pile not as the end result of Kiki and Geep’s Herculean efforts on the lawn, but as their own newly installed playground. Kids and leaves just pair well, and soon they were all running down the hill and jumping into the pile, disappearing into its inky depths, somersaulting or tossing handfuls of leaves into the air or at each other, shrieking with delight. One fearless little monkey even decided he would ride his bike down the hill and into the pile at full speed. We cringed, but some unseen hand kept everyone safe and whatever might have gone wrong, didn’t. By dinner time, the pile had compacted into a gooey mess, but everybody was accounted for, albeit with so many leaves in their hair that they all looked like harpies.

And that’s when it hit me: raking is hard work and leaf piles are, by nature, messy places. Kind of like democracies. 

Today is election day, time to rake our political leaves yet again. I have no doubt that this year’s leaf pile will likely result in a particularly messy, even potentially dangerous, pyramid of dead leaves. In the days leading up to this moment, we’ve been bombarded with myriad slogans and ads that, to me, only seem to underscore the deep divisions that lie underneath our body politic. People could get hurt—have already been hurt—jumping in, playing too rough, undoing all the hard work that has been done ever since we became a nation.

The presidential election of 1864 was another particularly contentious affair. Our nation had been fighting a deadly Civil War for four long years and the incumbent President, Abraham Lincoln, imagined he might well lose the election to his Democratic rival, General George McClellan. Even before election day—another Tuesday, November 8—President Lincoln went so far as to state publicly that should he lose, he would bend to the will of the people and work graciously with the new President-elect to ensure a smooth transition of power. After all, that is the way democracies are supposed to work, isn’t it?

Of course, that didn’t happen. Lincoln won in a landslide and would remain in the White House to oversee the end of the Civil War, only to be assassinated by a deranged southern sympathizer who shouted “Sic semper tyrannis!” at the moment of murder. Lincoln went on to be one with ages, but by some miracle, our fragile experiment in democracy survived.

Like raking leaves, there are just some tasks that have to be done, no matter how daunting or impossible or endless they seem. Whatever the outcome of today’s election, ensuring a fair process that preserves this democracy is one of those. If you haven’t already done so, jump in and vote.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

I went to elementary school at St. Edmund’s Academy in Pittsburgh. It was a small place, at the time newly founded, with a nursery school, kindergarten, and grades one through eight. I spent eleven years there, longer and likely more formative than any other school I ever attended. Today, St. Edmund’s is coeducational, but back then, it was an all boys school with Episcopalian roots, complete with a weekly chapel service every Thursday led by a semi-retired parish priest, but undoubtedly presided over by the school’s Headmaster (whom everyone simply called “Sir”) who doubled as the organist and choir director. Singing was strongly encouraged and Glee Club was the summit of all school-related activities, more important even than sports, believe it or not. 

Our school’s patron saint, Edmund, or more properly, Edmund the Martyr, was King of East Anglia on the English coast from 855 until his death on November 20, 869. I have no idea how or why he came to be so revered in Pittsburgh that a school was named in his honor, but we all knew Edmund’s story. As a young boy, he was befriended by a pack of wolves, raised by them to be a goodly king which, apparently, he was until he met his end either in battle against the Great Heathen Army or for refusing to renounce God when the battle was lost. In either account, he was felled by Viking arrows which we all assumed was the only proper way for a saint to die, better even than crucifixion.

I’m thinking about all this because today, Tuesday, is All Saints Day in the Christian tradition, and while we may not all be Christian, we all can honor good deeds by good people, the known and unknown. Moreover, the fact that All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows Day, follows on the heels of All Hallows Eve—the costumed candy fest we all know as Halloween—says something profoundly important about our contemporary culture: maybe that these days, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the new saints of the chocolate aisle and that martyrdom has finally fallen out of fashion. About time!

All Saints Day is a solemn day in the Christian Church, a time for remembering all the souls who have gone before us, the famous and the obscure. It underscores the Christian belief that there remains a spiritual bond between those of us who now reside in heaven and those of us still here on earth. I realize that’s a matter of personal predilection, but I like to think that there is still a vibrant connection between the living and the dead, that the past can still inform the future, and that hope abides.

The Episcopal hymnal is full of good songs for lusty singing, but none, I think, more so than “I Sing A Song of the Saints of God.” It was a young choirboy’s dream, full of references to saints who met their ends in various gruesome ways—one was even “slain by a fierce wild beast.” That the subtext of the hymn—that we can all be saints by performing small acts of kindness every day—was likely lost on us; it was much more impressive to be martyred by marauding Vikings than to encounter someone in a tea shop, which, according to the hymn, was another possible path to sainthood. Tea shops fail to impress young boys.

But that was then; I’m not a young boy anymore. Now, I hear that hymn differently because it ends with this refrain: “For the saints of God are just folk like me/And I mean to be one, too.” I like that. Maybe I don’t need to be a martyr after all.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

Last week, I attended a lecture—part of an annual series of ethical reflections—given by a former colleague and wise, young friend whom I greatly admire. He spoke about the importance of inclusion—honoring our differences instead of staying within our separate tribes—and about the need for practicing the small acts of kindness that can bind people of different persuasions into the whole cloth of community. He reminded us that a single gracious act can help to heal this broken, weary world: a smile, an unexpected courtesy, a friendly invitation, even an honest question that reflected genuine interest in someone else’s story can help to unlock the giant, cast-in-bronze doors that guard our cathedral selves.

It’s no secret that we live in a deeply divided nation on a deeply divided planet. All too often, we stand on opposite shores of vast oceans, shouting at each other. There are a few of us who have too much and too many who don’t have enough. There are racial divides, political divides, gender divides. Some of us are well-fed; too many others go to bed hungry. There are the clothed and the naked, the comfortable and the homeless, the settled and the migrant. Some of us are vehemently pro-choice, others are adamantly pro-life. We’re either believers or infidels. We either trust in science and honor its rules, or we construct alternative realities that serve and advance our own particular purposes.

It seems to me that if we are ever to span, or even begin to shrink, these yawning chasms, we’ve got to emerge from our own self-centered bubbles and learn to live together. The first step in meeting that challenge lies in listening to each other’s stories. Not just the ones that resemble our own, but especially the ones told in different ways and in other tongues.

Cultural change never happens overnight; it’s glacially slow, drip-by-drip. Moreover, it cannot be mandated from above; it has to come from within. But it can begin with small acts of inclusion by individuals—people like you and me. If we truly want to bridge our cultural divides, every one of us must be willing to engage with people whose beliefs and practices are different from our own. We must stop listening to the ear worms inside our own heads, and truly hear other peoples’ stories.

We learned a century ago that a long journey always begins with a single step. But in last week’s lecture, my friend mentioned another way of expressing that same aphorism, attributed to philanthropist W. Clement Stone: “Small hinges swing big doors.” Bingo!

I am, by nature, an observer. But observing—even observing and commenting—isn’t enough anymore. A hinge is only a metal mechanical bearing that connects a door to its frame. It allows that door to open or close by rotating—theoretically simple, but in this metaphorical context, it gets a bit more complicated. If each one of use were willing to be a little hinge, then maybe collectively, we could swing open the big doors that have shut us off, one from another. Maybe that’s how we can begin to reconnect, to find more common ground.

It’s not hard; it just sounds hard. I think all that is required of you and me is a commitment to engage with another person whose story is different from our own. Maybe just once a day, maybe more; that way, it might even become a habit. And if each of us were to make that same commitment every day…well, you get the point.

Small hinges swing big doors. Be a hinge.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

 

 

 

I’m not exactly sure when our collective obsession with counting steps began, but standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona is a thing of the past. I think I remember reading somewhere that a daily goal of 10,000 steps is almost accidental because the Japanese inventor who figured out how to count steps with a smartphone or a watch through the character for 10,000 in Japanese resembled a man walking. So now 10,000 steps a day has wormed its way into our consciousness, and if we fail to meet that goal, guilt can set in like a brooding, rainy day with clouds racing across the Tuscan landscape.

Be that as it may, there is some good walking to do around the globe. Last month, a friend of mine set out to walk a portion of the Camino de Santiago, a network of pilgrim pathways winding through France, Spain, and Portugal that eventually lead to the shrine of St. James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwest Spain. While I’m not sure how many steps my friend took along his route or even how many cumulative miles he walked, I’m as much in awe of the devotional aspect of his journey as I am of the physical one. I’m guessing some divine impulse propelled him on his way and whatever that something is, I’m sure his humble plodding provided a feast for thought.

On our recent trip to Italy, specifically in Tuscany, my wife and I (literally) crossed paths with another great European pilgrimage route: the Via Francigena. This ancient road begins in the cathedral city of Canterbury in England, and then, after crossing the English Channel by boat, pilgrims could walk through France, Switzerland, and Italy, across the Alps, and eventually arrive in Rome. And if Rome were not their ultimate destination, these holy walkers could continue their journey to ports in Puglia where they could board a ship bound for the Holy Land. The journey from Canterbury to Rome is more than eleven hundred miles; at an average pace of about twelve miles a day, a weary pilgrim might arrive in Rome after about eighty days of walking. The onward journey to the Holy Land by ship might take another month or two.

In the Middle Ages, the Via Francigena was the only major route to Rome from the north. Pilgrims walked it to visit the Holy See and to worship at the tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. During the Crusades, pilgrims used it to make their way to Jerusalem without having to risk the pirate-infested waters of the Western Mediterranean or traverse any Saracen lands.

The Via Francigena was never a single paved road. It was, rather, a network of pathways that shifted over the centuries depending on local politics, trade routes, or even pilgrim whimsy. Today, pilgrims can make their journey on foot, on horseback, or on a bicycle. What was once a spiritual pathway, the VF now encompasses a broader mission for environmentalists, artists and architects, history and culture buffs, even foodies and wine-enthusiasts. In 2011, a couple even ran the length of the Via Francigena in fifty-eight days in support of WaterAid, an international organization focusing of clean drinking water, hygiene, and sanitation. Whew!

The photo that accompanies this Musing is of Monteriggioni, a Tuscan hilltop town that marks the limit of the 66th stage along the route of the Via Francigena. If life is a journey, then aren’t we all pilgrims of one sort or another? Whatever road you choose, if you walk it faithfully and humbly, you won’t even need to count your steps.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

 

 

 

We’ve been home almost a week now, and as some memories of our trip to Italy fade and old routines kick in, I feel like I’m waking from a dream. In the early morning darkness that foretells autumn, I spend a few minutes each day recalling specific moments of our journey, gathering them like chestnuts, storing them for winter.

Friends ask, “What was your favorite moment?” They might as well be asking, “Who’s your favorite child?” Still, I try to sort out the moments—the many good and the few bad—in an attempt to put together a narrative that makes sense. I can’t; it just doesn’t work that way. A wide-angle lens doesn’t provide sufficient detail; a telescopic lens leaves out perspective and nuance. I reread notes I made along the way: that helps, but eventually I’ll need to write them more coherently, and, hopefully, that effort will generate both the detail and perspective I’ll need to answer my friends’ questions.

I remember that just before leaving for Italy back in mid-September, I whispered a little prayer: “Please let us have a seamless trip.” Someone must have heard me because we did. There has been a lot of talk these past few months about the craziness and stress of travel in the post-COVID world, much of it true. But I’ll say this: all our flights left on time and arrived on schedule and none of our suitcases ended up in unintended airports. Thank you, Lufthansa. All the Italian trains ran on time, even if did happen to be at the wrong station: Rome to Venice, Venice to Florence, Florence to Naples, Naples back to Rome. Thank you, Mussolini.

The car we rented in Tuscany and Umbria served us well and was returned unscratched, although there was that moment at the toll booth on the Autostrada outside Florence. Mea culpa. All-in-all, the moving parts of our trip ran remarkably smoothly and if that’s a testament to some higher power, I’m eternally grateful.

Once we settled into the hotels along our route—Rome, Venice, Tuscany, Umbria, Florence, and Ravello on the Amalfi coast, we felt safe and comfortable. Even in October, Italy has more than its fair share of tourists, but for the most part, we saw what we wanted to see and if a line was too long, we just sat in the sun and had (another) glass of wine. There is no such thing as a bad meal in Italy—well, maybe one, but there is always a lesson to be learned from a single culinary mistake.

Rome is still eternal and the Sistine Chapel is still crowded. In St. Peter’s Basilica, my wife had a quiet conversation with a pope who presented her grandmother with a commemorative medal many years ago. We peeped through a keyhole on the Aventine Hill, gaped at Michelangelo’s Moses, threw coins in the Trevi Fountain, climbed the Spanish Steps, ate a gelato in Piazza Navona, and wandered through Trastevere.

One evening in Venice, we sat, enthralled, listening to a performance of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” in an old church. The following day, we mastered the vaporetto system, sat by a quiet canal and had (another) glass of wine, and, at dinner, made more new friends.

In Tuscany and Umbria, we wandered through hilltop towns, did just a little shopping, ate delicious meals, and marveled at the rows of slim, pointed cypress trees, as well as at the subtle pastel hues of light and shadow that painted the countryside.

In Florence, we wandered through a maze of streets, fell in love with the humble Convent of San Marco, got caught in a torrential downpour, and, yes, we bought leather.

And in Ravello, we celebrated our dear friends’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, swam in the Tyrrhenian Sea, sailed past Positano, and, no I didn’t drop my phone overboard. I almost did, but it was saved from drowning by a narrow gunnel. Talk about a higher power!

The trip home was long (20 hours, give or take), but relatively uneventful. I know it will take a few days to decompress and find my footing in this time zone, but in the end, I think maybe Dorothy was on to something: “Home…there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home.”

Last night, my wife and I stood on a bluff overlooking the Chesapeake Bay and watched the sun drop below the watery horizon. The silhouette of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the lights of Baltimore shimmered in the chilly distance. An ocean away, Italy was fast asleep. These words came creeping into my mind: “With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” (Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann)

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.

 

According to the original blueprint of our Italian odyssey, we should be on our way home now. But we aren’t. When the stars aligned and good friends decided to visit the Amalfi coast, we decided to tack on three more days and share a few sunny days with them in Ravello, a magical little town high on a hill overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. Home can wait.

But I hear a clock ticking. Or maybe it’s the bell tolling from the campanile of the small lovely church that sits astride the town square. It has been a grand tour, a wondrous journey: Rome and Venice, then seven days exploring small hilltop villages in the Tuscan and Umbrian countryside, then on to Florence, and now here we are with good friends in Ravello. I’m well aware of our good fortune and, at the same time, I can’t pretend that travel today isn’t without its share of frustrations and missteps. Nevertheless, we’ve weathered our few squalls and sailed into some beautiful sunsets. Life is good.

Italy gives you time to think about the past. Etruscans, Romans, the separate kingdoms, the unified state. Everything coexists here, sometimes randomly but always harmoniously. Art, architecture, science, music all converge here. Italy was the candle that lit the Renaissance and ushered in the Age of Enlightenment. We’ve marveled at what was created here: the statues and fountains, the churches and palaces, brawling cities and charming villages. Here, in Ravello, perched high above the Amalfi coast, I can’t help but wonder how this all came to be: a village carved into a rocky cliff, stone upon stone, carried two-thousand feet into the sky by ox carts and donkeys. No computer aided design, no charettes, just wobbly wood scaffolding and block and tackle pulleys. Haphazard design: unplanned, organic, but both functional and lovely. They say the first vehicle to reach this village was an American Jeep that managed to climb up here in World War II. Now busloads of tourists by day, but stillness at night.

Italy demands you think about the present. During our time here, Italy held an election and another country has lurched to the right. Strangely, that process has been somewhat sotto voce but perhaps that’s because I can’t understand all that’s said under the roses. But still, I feel an uneasiness brought on by all that’s changing so fast. Immigration, a colossal national debt, climate change—real problems demanding tough choices and honest solutions in a country that fervently believes in pasta, wine, and la dolce far niente—the “sweetness of doing nothing.”

And, Italy makes me wonder about the future. Will there be a Venice in a hundred years? Will more monuments crumble to dust? Will more crowds of tourists overwhelm the Vatican, the Uffizi, or the Piazza San Marco? Will all this be here for our kids and grandkids? I hope so, but I wonder…

What was once our dream is now almost over. We count down the days. Our long flight home looms like a mountain over me. But I’m ready to sleep in my own bed and sit on my own porch, attempting to put these three weeks together like a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. But first things first or last days last. It’s beautiful here.

Ravello: the “city of music.” Richard Wagner composed “Parsifal” here. Also, a place at a remove, perfect for contemplation and fantasy. D.H. Lawrence was inspired to write “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” in this very hotel. “Lost to a world in which I grave no part, I sit alone and commune with my heart, pleased with my little corner of earth, glad that I came, not sorry to depart.”

Ciao! Turno subito.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.net.