 The pilgrim statue on Plaza San Marcos in Leon, Spain I am envisioning a moment in the not-too-distant future. In it, I’ll be standing on a gravel and dirt road just north of Leon, Spain ̶ ̶ a road that begins at the feet of my old pilgrim friend pictured here, and leads toward the town of La Robla as the first stage of the Camino San Salvador. I will have been walking for a few hours. No one else is around and it is silent, the bustle of Leon only an echo in memory. Surrounding me are some foothills, light swells in the land, nothing too impressive. Impressive comes in another day or two in the form of the Cantabrian Mountain Range.
In this future moment of mine, I note how very different this experience will be from my last walk along a pilgrimage route. In time, seven years have passed. It seems so much has changed. And yet here I am again, walking in this place that has always reminded me of time’s circular shape, walking over the ancient ground, walking through the birthplace of this life I now live as one who writes and thinks and wonders. The old conundrums are with me again: the tension between time and what it contains, the way things seem to be, the way things are, and the way they shall be. And so now, alone during this envisioned brief interlude early along the Way, I am to pause and place my intention, as silent and secret as it is dark, into the steps not yet taken, onto the abiding road that awaits, for this is the way of pilgrimage: to walk on unknown ground in faith, to allow the inner journey to reflect outward, and most of all to listen for the road’s steadfast and trustworthy reply. The road is wise and holy. The road is beautiful. The road is life. Here is a prayer I can offer aloud: May I find a way forward. May I ascend beyond. May the saints speak their Word and carry me ever homeward. Amen. Buen Camino. I’ll be in touch.  This quiet lyrical essay that ponders the nature of death and therefore life, released a little over a month ago. Since then, I've received some lovely comments about how it's landed in reader's hearts. I've always felt this book has a thing to say, and would hope that it finds its way to those who may benefit.
If you've read this book and found it worthy, I'd be most grateful were you to leave the best possible rating and review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and (if you're on it) Goodreads. It really does help in directing eyes to the pages.  From my latest, Around the Forever Bend, Remembrances of Wondering What Lies Beyond Death, page 49... "The first thing is to climb the steep berm of the dune, following the sounds from the surf beyond. At the top, it's not unusual for those who've never been here, or who, like me don't come often, to stop and pause as one might when entering a church sanctuary. From here I can see the entire crescent of the beach: the Atlantic, the sand, the grasses, the hook of the point a mile distant."  Today, Around the Forever Bend, Remembrances of Wondering What Lies Beyond Death, is officially published! I'm grateful beyond measure for this quiet little book, a book that revealed itself to me in its own good time. As it made the rounds of early readers as a manuscript, I was told a few times that it was helpful, comforting, and thought provoking. From my humble place as its writer, these have been my highest aspirations for it. I pray this continues for many more who read.
In this lyrical essay, the narrative of remembrance, poems, and the beauty of dreams mingle. Journey from a child's view of life's end to a perspective much closer to that end, and something as familiar as an old friend comes into focus, greets us, and teaches us its ways. Around the Forever Bend can be ordered online or in-person from your favorite local bookseller, or online from the publisher, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon. It's also available in all e-book formats. Should you experience the book as a worthy read, please know a positive rating and review at Amazon and/or Goodreads helps greatly in advancing its reach into the world.  Frederic (Rick) Ludwig, Captain, USN (Ret), pictured on the left, passed suddenly on Sunday, April 16, 2023 in San Diego in the company of those who mattered to him most, his family. Rick had several titles in life: Son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, friend. He was also a legendary naval aviator (call sign Wigs), a veteran of some 300 combat missions over Vietnam, and qualified on a laundry list of fixed and rotary-wing naval aircraft. He even had a stint as the Commanding Officer at Top Gun. For more on his military career, check out this interview. To borrow some aviation slang, Wigs lived life with the burners on until the landing...the day before his death, he was belatedly celebrating his 78th birthday with his family over some pizza. Way to go.
His younger brother is my dear friend, Bill Ludwig. These two bonded deeply and early in life. Raised in the small town of Woodbridge, Connecticut, their childhood was like something from the pages of Boys’ Life magazine. Every account of it I heard from either of them was nothing short of idyllic. Being raised as best friends makes for a connection that only deepens over time. I think it fair to say that to the end, the company they preferred was each other’s. Living on opposite sides of America did nothing to deter that preference. In addition to frequent visits, they spoke on the phone daily, and they’d just made plans to cross the Atlantic together on a cruise from Spain this coming autumn. Over the past few weeks, Rick had experienced some vague health issues. Bill and I spoke of this a few times, and he thought that maybe despite some plans to the contrary, he ought to go to California instead. It quickly became an imperative...as I see it, a calling. Sudden. Urgent. Go now. Two days later, they were hanging out in San Diego. Rick’s birthday celebration followed with nothing foreboding on the horizon. Next day found Bill at his brother’s side as he passed. How else to see this but as an act of Grace, to see them as being held in the hand of something so great, so perfect? As for me, I’m done with coincidence and chance. I count myself among Bill’s friends, and we are legion. There is something about this guy. I know we’ll hold him close each in our own way. I’m certain he will feel this almost as deeply as his loss. We are never alone. With you, brother.  Around the Forever Bend, Remembrances of Wondering What Lies Beyond Death, my latest offering, will be publishing (at last)on May 23, 2023. Originally scheduled for August of 2022, something told me at the time it wasn't quite there yet. Glad I listened. Glad also to have such an understanding publisher.
From the book description: We are the only beings on earth who intrinsically wonder about our own end. But is there a way to elicit more elegant, gentle questions? Maybe something finer can be imparted, a way to bring the inevitable grief this life holds, into the love it really is. In this lyrical essay, poetry and the beauty of dreams mingle with remembrance. Journey from a child's view of life's end to a perspective in time much closer to that end, and something as familiar as an old friend comes into focus, greets us, and teaches us its ways. Around the Forever Bend is available online for preorder from the publisher, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Of course, ordering from your local bookseller is a pretty great thing...just tell them "it's on Ingram," and they'll know what to do. My memoir, Into the Thin, as well as the more recently published anthology, In Search of Simple (to which I contributed along with a dozen terrific writers), are currently available from the same sources.  A note: Sometimes, an answer can appear prior to the question. This was such an occasion. I noodled with this piece for a few weeks before having the slightest idea what it was all about. It was finally revealed online, in a "Question for the Road" posed by a friend. The way it appeared to me in accordance with my current interior life was this: In the coming transition from winter to spring, what is being offered from the spirit of nature within and around me to gently suggest that within is also around? It was a beginning... Here in Connecticut, the winter now just departing was uniquely mild. Disquietingly so. There was little snow until the very end, and was rarely cold. The nearby lake never froze over. No ice boats. No ice fishing. Late autumn simply lingered until spring ̶ ̶ winter mostly went missing. Disturbance was in the air. It was enough to make me wonder about the world I thought I’d come to know. The photo above of warmly lit homes across a frozen cove at dusk was taken a couple of years ago, during a deep winter long since given over to all the seasons which followed. But it’s not the winter just passed that has me wondering. Not really. More lately, it’s the giving over, the ever-changing face of temporal life, the fusion of appearances and what is true. During such consideration, I lean toward recollection. *****  During the warm days of summer, I walk beneath a canopy of untouchable, deep forest green in the cool of its shade. Soft ground cushions my steps, and maybe there is even an easy breeze. But it’s the canopy high above and beyond reach that is the truth of summer for me. In it lies its wisdom. Shadow offsets light. Green is the color of my summer thoughts. And then gradually, the days begin to shorten. Light yields to an earlier dusk, warmth eases, and come August the first colors of autumn begin to appear in the green above. The air just begins to dry and clear. In the clearing air a surrender whispers and the canopy’s wisdom is revealed, for it's always known what is to come of it.  Soon, the colors turn away from green, anything but green, and leaves rain onto the soft ground, no longer out of reach, leaves now offered to the fall, and mild summer breezes are given to crisp winds. Now, I walk on the leaves I could never have touched, so I come to love them even more. The coming and going, the all-falling-down. The exacting wind and rain of November strips the tree limbs clean, every single one. Leaves them all barren-gray and brown. Unforgivable. Until the late autumn sunsets backlight those bare limbs, and in blazing smears of salmon, orange, and crimson, a God so beautiful is revealed that I still sink into my heart every time, and a held breath escapes and makes a noise that almost sounds like, Oh. Mere seconds pass, and the sky’s colors wane quickly in the fading glow, given to the night until dawn. How soft and perfect. ***** I remember sitting on a beach in Spain one late spring at the end of an arduous, weeks-long walk, contemplating the violence of big waves as they crashed against rocks and cliffs in a merciless repetition. I imagined them then as voices, each one unique with its own message to be heard. Much harder to hear was the hiss of the foamy backwash, the waves returning to the sea, the crashing answered. It was the first time I came to know of this returning as a giving over, the forgiveness of a wave completed. Exhaled. Inhaled. The broader implications have haunted me ever since.  Farther up the coast from that beach and for several days that followed, I walked on paths carved through scrub brush on the rugged moors atop tall cliffs, always within earshot of the surf below. Some days were summer-warm, sunlit, clear and breezy; others were overcast and gloomy with a windblown chill that foretold of the time beyond summer. And in the midst of this, random, confusing memories of the longer walk kept arriving as if from out of the world itself. The temptation was to press in, to resolve what could have become a great anxiety. But the less I tried to understand, the more I understood, and with the accompanying silence came a wisdom shared by the green summer canopy and those backlit sunsets. For the slightest measures of time, these worldly things and I were one thing, held in a common hand and cherished. So it is in the making way, the yielding, the acquiescence that makes it all so impeccable and so incomprehensible; one thing following another and precisely as it must, devoid of any resistance, yet each new thing loaded with the potential of great meaning. The seasons, the violent waves, seem to agree. So does the light and dark, the warmth, the cold, all the love and all the fear, human desire and soul’s grace, the great confusion and deep understanding. Breathing in. Breathing out. Listening closely now in a season to give over.  This gem of a book is now available from the Publisher (Wayfarer Books), Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or by ordering from your favorite local bookseller (tell them, “It’s on Ingram” ̶ ̶ they’ll know what to do). There is such great wisdom to be found on these pages about the high art of keeping it simple. I hope you will consider reading it.
My own modest contribution to this beautiful collection of voices speaks of experiences that today seem as though they happened a lifetime ago. Perhaps this is actually so. Though it recalls a difficult time, it was magical as well and it seemed to me then that everything rising before me was a miracle. This is, perhaps, one of the gifts of difficult times. The simpler life which I began long ago continues today. It was a prayer then. It remains so now. Maybe especially now.  One of the great perks of having a writing life is that I’m sometimes able to have an early read of a yet-to-be-published work. This one from writing pal Heidi Barr was a real treat. Here’s what I had to say on Goodreads:
“With pristine, warm language, Heidi Barr creates an opportunity to fall into the depth of ourselves and our world. Here we may find that the earth and sky and us are woven into a single cloth, beyond the possibility of fraying despite appearances that surround us; that we can come to experience our world and fellow beings not as an “other,” but as ourselves. The takeaway for me? Compassion. Good reason to dive in to this beautiful book.” Available from the Publisher (Broadleaf Books), through your favorite bookseller, or Amazon (which includes the "Look Inside" feature). Many years ago, I had a conversation with a man who often found himself homeless due mostly to severe addiction. He said the very worst times were during the winter. Being on the streets of a New England city at that time of year was almost unbearable. He would feel the biting cold to be sure, but would also feel as if he was invisible to everyone. It was one thing to sense the pain of judgmental stares, but aversion could sting even more. It seems few can bear to view such suffering as they walk along the city streets.
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