A Pilgrimage of Transformation in Italy - Chandi Wyant


I’m limping on both feet—if that’s possible—in scorched wheat fields somewhere south of Siena.

I’m a woman alone and I’m lost.

The sun’s heat pummels the earth, and my limbs are like basil leaves, crushed by the stone pestle of the sun. Dusty tracks are scratched across the brittle fields. Sharp rocks push into the soles of my shoes, and I chide myself for bringing trail runners instead of day hikers with thicker soles. My spine is slimy against the pad of my pack and my teeth clench at the pain in my feet.

A farmhouse comes into view, suggesting a greener, shadier route to come. When I reach the farm, the trail disappears. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, trying to relieve their ache, wondering which way to turn.

The sound of a motor causes me to look toward a field where a man on a tractor waves me over. As I walk closer, he calls out, “Devi tornare indietro!” (You have to go back.)

I call to him, “Ma quanto indietro?” (But how far back?)

“The signs are incorrect! Go back!” I hear his shouts in Italian as he plunges the tractor into chunks of earth and rumbles away.

I return slowly on the dusty tracks to the brittle fields. Finding a handkerchief-sized patch of shade, I take off my pack and sit on it. My head drops toward my feet. Silence reigns, as if in the piercing heat even the crickets and birds have been struck mute.

I’ve been walking alone for twenty days, crossing the Apennines, climbing the hills of Tuscany, and skirting the edges of busy highways, and I’ve not been lost until now.

Lost. That’s why I undertook a pilgrimage in my favorite place in the world. In the past year, my foundation had been swept away by both a divorce, the pain of which surprised me, and a sudden traumatic illness. These ordeals left my physical and emotional health in such a terrible state of disrepair that I feared I would never get my glow back.

I lift my head from my hands. The silent, brittle fields offer me no solution.

I must not fail. If I fail at this, I will fail to get my glow back.

I’ve made myself a promise with this pilgrimage. Un voto, a vow.

Slowly, I stand, heave my pack on, and begin retracing my steps. My legs feel as if they cannot manage the weight of my body. Sweat threatens to drip into my eyes, and I stop to squint at furrows in the field—mini trails made by mice. Then I see a tractor track on a hill above me. I aim myself toward it. A tractor track will surely lead to a farmhouse at some point. Deciding on a direction brings relief, but I make slow progress. “Please,” I murmur to the sun, “you don’t have to keep pounding me.”

I hunker under my hat, my eyes cast downward, my shoulders cringing. Just put one foot in front of the other and you’ll arrive somewhere, I tell myself.

You’ll arrive somewhere.

Arrive. From the Latin ad rīpa, to the shore.        

Am I getting there now, to a new shore?


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