Friday, September 8, 2017

Gone Down East

I post on Facebook because my I phone and google do not play well together .
I have begun walking from Main Street in Lubec Maine. For now I am walking to Acadia .
Love yourself and walk is my message.
Erik Bendl from Louisville, Ky on Facebook.

Saturday, September 2, 2017

A Moment Worth the Effort

Few destinations I have journeyed toward have felt so satisfying as the stroll from the mailbox at the end of the driveway in Louisville to Hopkinsville where, at the total eclipse of the sun four weeks later, beside my big sister, we watched the world turn to darkness beneath clear skies in the afternoon. We laughed and cried in awe under the amazing sight hand-in-hand, free of a lifetimes' ills, for two minutes and forty seconds. Afterwards, while the moon slowly relinquished its shadow, we enjoyed watching children frolic with the world in an open space perfect for play. Making the memories we will have all the sweeter in years to come, of the day when we stood before the world, together for a moment.
The children truly will inherit the Earth.






Sunday, July 30, 2017

A Differerent Dawn

 Once in lifetime, they say, you may be able to travel to the path of a solar eclipse.
When I am older I'd like to remember getting there.
I'm walking to the path where the moon covers the the sun... for two minutes.


 The first people to stop and talk with me after I rolled past the mailbox at the end of the driveway were two sheriffs who seemed inordinarily happy that I was walking for diabetes awareness; spreading my little message to take care of yourself, walk to help control-prevent-manage it. One quickly got out asking to have our picture taken by his partner. He just as quickly stiffened and labored to the little ditch with running water, a foot or so across. As he sidestepped down the berm he told me he had just returned to duty from bypass surgery on both legs from his diabetes. Apparently I was a reminder he took to heart (perhaps only for two minutes) enough to move the parts he wanted to keep. He shook my hand and called me an angel...Leaning more comfortably with "idiot", I was encouraged that this journey will have more memories than two minutes of darkness and a new dawn in the middle of the afternoon.
As my friends' Grandmother always said,  "Self praise is half scandal."
I'm heading to the path where the moon eclipses the sun around Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
I hope to prevent the ravages of diabetes, and for me, walking has helped.
I update pictures and comments on Facebook, Erik Bendl from Louisville, Kentucky.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

No words

No words can fully express what I have felt since the third weekend of January, when Nice (the dog) passed away.
We somehow had stepped in fourty eighth states, walked thousands of miles before he decided to get old and pass quietly. The decline was swift. Especially in the weeks from Election Day, when we had walked to the Petroglyphs in Albuquerque, New Mexico to the weekend of the Presidential Inauguration when it was time for Nice to leave the world.
The time for mourning has passed.
I must shed the collective weight of all that has occurred in these few months and continue as best I know how. Keep pushing.