Dear Caminoheads,

I have had this post in my to-do list for a while, and for some reason, I couldn´t sit to write it. Today isn´t different, but I came to terms that there are at least to intense reasons for not being able to write about Phil´s blog book… One is because it brings back to me a lot of great conversations Phil and I, and at times with Kathryn also, had while the book was maturing in the womb… conversations that have resonated a lot with me, that made me grow in so many ways… And the other is because of the content of the book, which yes, it is the same as the blog, but distilled in the way it is, and available for reading “in batches” (I mean, not a bit every day, as it happened with the blog), it is quite moving… it is a man´s journey.

And somehow it is not “a man´s journey” but to me, it is “my friend Phil´s journey”, a friend that I had for not many years really, but a friend who without even knowing, allowed me to live along him a part of my personal life story that I had no opportunity to be a part of. And this was about Cancer and not about the Camino, which is what somehow brought us together, but thinking out loud tonight, I realize that it was about Catholicism too, which is fact was the “attraction point” to Phil as I signed my first comment with a “Hugs from Argentina”…  He shot me an email right away asking “Do you know the Pope?”!

Along the years I knew Phil, he had this way of bringing up topics that had some sort of “trigger” for things I had not wanted to think about, or that I had struggled with most of my life. But Phil had the ability to treat these topics from a perspective that was inviting -if not easy- to think about them (ok, sometimes he had this crazy way and there was no easy way no matter what!) And to me, the book is that… a map of the things I walked through in my own backyard, while he was navigating his in his own backyard Camino.

I am sure I am not alone in this experience. I have the feeling that in the same way we all experience the same but in our own way when walking the Camino in Spain, the same happened when reading Phil´s blog, now put together in a book… safe from the challenges of technology!

 

This year, instead of a Veranda or an Oasis, there is a BOOK LAUNCH!!! The 2022 opportunity to gather in the ranch, hopefully around the tapas table, celebrating Phil´s life one more time. Rebecca and Kathryn who did a ton of work along with Phil to make this happen deserve all the credit and the hugs and celebration.

 

AUGUST 13th, 2022 at RAVEN RANCH

 

You know the methodology already… Just let us know who is willing to come; there will be no overnight stays and it will have no schedule as the Veranda or Oasis had, but it is a gathering and a celebration nonetheless!

PLEASE COME!

 

Book launch loves,

Cris