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Between the Path and the Way:
A Thousand Mile Journal
Between the Path and the Way is an open-hearted account of one woman’s journey across the ever-changing landscape of the Via Francigena. Less travelled than the well-known Camino de Santiago, the Via Francigena begins in Canterbury and ends in Rome, with another leg stretching to Santa Maria di Leuca in the heel of Italy’s “boot,” but as Page discovers, beginnings and endings don’t always conform to maps or plans. Her walk takes her by the canals and flower-festooned villages of France, along terraced vineyards above the shore of Lac Leman in Switzerland, over the Great Saint Bernard Pass in the Alps, down into the flat rice fields of the Po River valley in Italy, over more mountains to reach the Tyrrhenian Sea and through the misty-morning hills of Tuscany.
Unsatisfied with previous attempts at journaling, Page commits herself to keeping a bullet journal, a more visual and abbreviated method: lists and phrases instead of sentences and paragraphs.
Inspired by a quote from the poet, Charles Simic, “Be brief, and tell us everything,” she allows herself one page per day. By “collecting” moments, images, and snippets of conversation for her journal, by noticing seemingly small and mundane details as she walks, the world—so full of beauty, humor and kindness—opens up to her, or maybe it is the other way around.
Page artfully captures each day’s surprises, challenges and delights in a one-page journal entry which, together, create a testament to just how far moments of beauty and kindness can carry a person—a story not of seeking, but of paying attention.
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