lukebuehler.com About the life of a pilgrim

Hiking on Streets and Loneliness

I started off from Venice at noon time, taking the bus to the airport using a ticket I got from my mom. From there I had to walk along the main road for a few hours. It was hard to be alone again after being with my mom and having the comfort of a hotel. I was so unmotivated to keep going and felt quite lonely. My next destination was Jesolo, which is a nice little town close to Venice but on the main land. But I couldn't make it in one day to there so I slept somewhere beside the road in my tent hiding in some trees. It was wired hearing the cars go by at night and hard to get used to. All those thoughts going trough the mind of what could happen and who could come by during I sleep. Nothing happened that night, but I realized that I had to get used to this way of sleeping because many more nights like this would come. Early in the morning right at sunrise, I started off and got to Jesolo early in the morning. In a cafe I drank my Capucho (Capuchino, how they call it here) and made my way towards east. The following days I had to walk most of the time along the main road leading to Trieste, because there are so few other roads and if I take one, it often ends at a dead end. One night I slept at a camping place at Caorle but the other nights I camped out in the wild. Sometimes close to fields and sometimes in the woods. One night I slept close to a corn field. Suddenly I heard a loud noise, I saw that the farmer was cutting the field at night with one of those huge farming machines. I was so scared he would get close to me and not see my little tent and I would end up in a corn can. He actually drove right by my tent and probably saw me, it was so loud though and scared the hell out of me. Any how life was simple until here, buying chap food at the grocery store, washing myself in the river and sleeping in my tent. Here in Trieste I found a nice Youth-Hostel right at the sea, with a nice view from my bed.

I want to tell you a little about what happened inside me so far. The journey is mostly an inner one. All the circumstances and adventures are minor to whats happening inside of me and what I'm going trough mentally and spiritually. The physical experience acts as a catalyst for the intense souls searching that happens right now as I'm far away from anything to hide and distract myself. One of the biggest challenges is the loneliness. The monotony of thought and seeing only roads for days really brings makes me meet my limits. Combined with the physical hardship, which makes me emotionally weary, the main challenge becomes overcoming self pitty and the thought to quit. So I see to it that from time to time I take a break, buy and ice cream or something. Since life is so simple I have become more simple too. Having an apple to eat and sitting down along the road already cheers me up. Someone who honks and shouts out of the car "Bravo, Go, Go, Go!", keeps me going for miles. I feel much closer to myself and more real as I have to face all those inner things. Walking has become much less of getting form A to B, but more about the fight of keeping an inner peace. The key to that is God. Without God, to whom we can relate to, I would get stuck in a hole of depression. He's a companion and someone I can cast all my worries onto. My prayers are simple, mostly keeping my heart focused on recognizing that there is someone who's watching over me. Finally it turns out to be a physical journey that takes me out of everything I've known so far and puts me into a place of facing my weaknesses and finding peace of heart. I'm curious of what else I have to go trough and a little bit scared to be honest, but after all, I already learnt much in the last few weeks and wouldn't to trade for anything else.