I was walking through the college grounds today when a kid called out from a distance, 'Mr Altmann, you need to update your Blog, you haven't written anything since 2019!'
How profound!
I have long neglected this space and not even thought about posting anything for such a while, the fact that someone has looked at it recently was amazing. The primary purpose of my blog was to record the adventure which our little family undertook along the Camino de Santiago ten years ago.
Yep, ten years.
The memories keep popping up on my socials, images of my little kids, me with black hair not grey, the beautiful Spanish countryside, a different time and a different life.
What we now call pre-COVID.
Looking back through my blog, that distant past, I get a bitter-sweet reminder of that special time. What a joy, what profound pleasure there is in living life at walking pace. What unquantifiable satisfaction there was in such as simple tasks as walking, eating wholesome food, sleeping, growing each other as people, participating in something so present and yet so ancient.
There is a quiet voice that calls me back, even now. Reaching out from my own past, from the echoes of the myriad of pilgrims who have gone before, and since, flooding me with that gentle release, washing over me with that assurance that there is a simpler way.
And like Banjo Paterson lamenting that out there somewhere Clancy rode with the cattle while he sat in his dingy city office, I do the same. It is a blessing to know that even now, lives are changing, pilgrims are settling into their morning along the Camino de Santiago, sipping their morning coffee, rising and setting out, there steel shod sticks sounding out a staccato beat on the Iberian cobbles. Even now.
Keep it real peeps, remain simple and humble and gracious and pay attention to those small things that make a difference.
And, like that kid who called out, remind and encourage each other to return to moments of blessing and memories of a job well done.
This one's for you man.
Buen Camino Peregrinos
Shane Altmann
The Pilgrim Principal
