Trail Day 1: Saint Jean Pied de Port -> Valcarlos, 7.3mi (after the trek from Paris to SJPdP).
My grandpa loved poetry. One of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do was sit back and watch his mid-nineties memory fail him from the seat of my early-twenties. But even on the worst days, you could mention the Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost’s name or begin quoting Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech and he would find the familiar words he kept tucked away.
I bought a 500 page poetry anthology for these 500 miles. All the trail guides I read before this trip reasonably recommend packing light, using the space you have intentionally and limiting the weight of your pack to an almost impossible percentage of your body weight comprised of only the most necessary things.
That’s how I ended up with three pairs of socks and a bulky poetry book shoved in my pack (amid the rest of my meticulous packing list).
My grandpa loved poetry and I loved him (more than I will ever be able to find words for). Reading, even carrying, this book makes me feel a little closer, which makes all the difference. Even on the worst days.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Hand worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step has trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to say,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere aged and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
– R. Frost (The Road Not Taken)
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