This is Saturday and this last Wednesday evening twelve of us gathered to watch for our first time Phil’s Camino. It was a very moving event for me and for all of us. It was so chock full of goodies, full of beauty, full of all the stuff that make one laugh and cry at the same time. I have been trying to come up with intelligent things to say about it but it is too close to me but I will try now.

Annie, Todd and Jessica along with a whole bevy of talented folks have been adding their magic to this effort in all sorts of ways. People in the movie were so beautiful just being themselves, Rick and daughter Maryka, Kelly, my Australian walking pal Gracie. Regrets that it didn’t show some of the scores of folks that were so great along the Way, beautiful pilgrims from all points of the compass, beautiful Spanish people just being beautiful Spanish people.

Way back in the early summer of 2014 we were so focused on getting to Spain and the filming there. That was where everything was headed and were the story was we thought. We had done a little filming at the hospital before going but not much was happening outside of that. And that was my idea of how the movie would read, all about Spain. But as it turns out the evoulved story is more about my inner pilgrimage and all that went into that and all that resulted from that. And that is as it should be perhaps because as so much has been pubished on the trail in Spain and its trials, comaradery, beauty and so forth.

So, as I think about the movie now that I have seen it and digested it somewhat the story of the Outer pilgrimage has been eclipsed by the story of the Inner pilgrimage that resulted from it. And as the maybe hundred hours of raw footage was winnowed down to the half hour of the movie so many things had to be jettisoned to effectively tell the evolved story. Am I making sense? This is the major challenge of editing, to get down to the essence with the pile of raw material. What are the rock bottom things that tell the story most effectively.

Realizing that constraint I still long for all memories of Spain and the wonderful folks that really made it all happen for me that would be too numerous to mention. And folks here, to numerous to mention and at the same time so important to me. But you guys know that you dwell in my heart as always. So, onward we go to tell folks that weren’t there or maybe never will get close, the story, the story of how a dreaded disease as cancer can be a catalyst for positive change for this guy, the average guy.

Time to bake some cornbread for breakfast. Wiley and I off after that on our third day to finish the old two day job. Thinking of you, trying to pray for you as often as I can think about it. Alperfect it is, althankful we are, love, Felipe.