I didn’t know what answers I would find, but I did know that I was trusting that “the Camino would provide.”

I was curious how it would be given the controversy over bathrooms in America and transgender individuals. Here gender didn’t matter. Just respect for privacy.

I knew pilgrims would be starting on the trail before daylight. The Camino Frances presents a particularly difficult challenge.

Immediately as I emerged from my albergue, I saw a lanky man with a headlamp and a backpack just below me on the road. Following him made sense.

“What is your intention for walking the Camino?” That is the question I knew I was going to be asked when arrived in Saint Jean de Pied Port to get officially registered for the pilgrimage.

I had nearly eight hours on the train which led to a rich time of reflection. One question surfaced almost immediately. It was “Where can I best serve?”

I knew I didn’t want to do this alone anymore. I would be starting out alone, but I wondered…

Pilgrimages really start the day that you commit rather than the day you take the first step on the trail.

I was feeling calm. In fact, not only calm, but liberated! I wrote in my journal on the flight from Calgary to Paris, “Opening! Opening! Opening!”

As I boarded the plane in Portland to Paris with a quick layover in Calgary, my heart was swirling with varying emotions associated with letting go.

It was my executive coach who first noticed that I had gone strangely silent.