Two Packs

Wake-up feel: 5.

An evening of food and drink behind it, and the Sunday came in low. Not fit for the exercises. The body said so and I let it stand.

Outside, cold. A clear sky. The rain the wind was pushing came yesterday, and the path holds it.

Coffee — not for the table this morning but for the road. Today I leave the house for two weeks: a workshop, here in the Carpathians, not far. The big pack on the back, the day pack on the front, the weight divided so the body can carry it. Down the mountain on the path, mud and slick from yesterday's rain, each step placed before the next is taken.

At the bottom the ride was waiting.

The old ones of these mountains carried their load this way — the double bag, one pouch before, one behind, the weight split across the body so the path could be walked. I did not think of them when I packed. And they went down this way too: the houses stand above the road, and every leaving is a descent — down the path to the road, to the train, to the ship, and a great many of them to the country I was born in. I walked their path the other direction to get here. The moon was high and thin over the ridge, nine nights past full, walking down toward the dark, and the keepers of the old count give the day to the flower — what opens on a falling moon, they say, opens for the seed.

They say the path down the mountain is the hardest.

Day 78
Verkhovyna, Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine
© 2026 Michel Garand | A Pilgrim's Journey | CC BY-SA 4.0
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