My Talisman

In an earlier post, Resistance, I wrote about the CHG (Country House Gent), Kevin Shelly and his adventures navigating the canals of central England and Wales on his narrowboat, Aslan.  I managed to finish binge watching the remaining 5 seasons (6-8 episodes each) of Travels by Narrowboat and it’s been interesting.  Some in my immediate circle have used terms like boring, silly, waste of time, etc.  To them I can only say if you look at it strictly by what it appears, you’re probably right.

What I see is a man on a quest, seeking a break from life, a new focus, a voyage of discovery that he could not take earlier in his life because of the expectations that life, society and family place upon us all.  Kevin defied those expectations of what “life” and “happiness” should be.  Maybe he was seeking what his life should be.

We’re all confronted with these types of dilemmas and we make the decisions and compromises that we think are best at the time.  Go to this school, take this job, marry or not, children or not.  Life is about compromises, dilemmas, and decisions.

I don’t know one person who has never said at one time or another that “if I could do that over” they’d ___________. In life, we don’t get many do- overs and sadly, if we do, they come with a heavy price of some type.  The CHG had to sell everything that he owned and now lives on his boat doing YouTube TV.  Do I envy him?  I don’t know.  Do I hope he finds what he’s looking for?  Yes, I do.

In one of the last episodes, Kevin is discussing where he’s at and where he’s come from, emotionally and spiritually more than his physical journey.  He said something to the effect that he can’t look back.  To that, I disagree.

While on the Camino 3 years ago, our focus was always west toward Santiago or maybe Finisterre.  One early morning, somewhere past Logorño, something told me to stop and look back and I was greeted with a glorious sunrise that I never would have seen had I not taken a moment to look back over my shoulder.  From that day on, I made a point to stop and look back to enjoy that beautiful moment and I was rarely disappointed.

While it may appear to be so, life is not a linear event, it’s not a straight line or a path headed west.  There was a cartoon when I was a kid called the The Family Circus.  It was about the things that go on in families, especially those with children.  There was always one where the mother would tell Billy, one of the children and the one I identified with, to come straight home from school or wherever.  The single frame cartoon always showed Billy meandering home, taking every side road available until he finally arrived.  That’s life to me.

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For me, I can’t not look back because I probably have or will miss something that’s important or meaningful, like that sunrise.  I remember on my final day in Finisterre, the day I walked up with Rick and met the remaining friends from the Camino, they were all looking west, towards home for some, and I was facing east.  Looking for the sunrise on that cloudy day or maybe wondering what I missed, suspecting, no, knowing that I had.