Journal Entry: SFO- September 2026
The canvas is blank, freshly stretched. I’m happy to be making my own canvases, something I’ve been wanting to learn. This one is perfect, a rarity during the process of learning something new.
The light is on the cusp of a good morning yawn and the fading blue of dawn rising.
Below my window I can hear my French neighbor and landlady, Brigitte, sweeping the steps of our colorful stone apartment building. She’s a grandmotherly woman with thick, beautiful gray hair in a cascading bun and vibrant green eyes, and she has adopted me, the wandering American dreamer.
In the distance comes the familiar crunch of rock and sand beneath boots. I look intently down the path between the olive trees and the vineyards and see the headlamps of pilgrims walking toward the little coastal village I’ve called home for the past six weeks. A village somewhere between France and Santiago. A stop for me as well, but I’m not a pilgrim of Santiago this time. Simply, a pilgrim of life, following the arrows of my heart.
When I come down the stairs, Brigitte greets me with a warm smile and hands me a basket of her freshly baked croissants and apples from her orchard, along with her greetings for the pilgrims. She is fond of calling me mon papillon, having noticed the wanderlust in me from day one. She ignores the fact that I too am a grandmother, just a bit younger than she is, but a grandma nonetheless. Like me, Brigitte is excited by the pilgrims, a welcome but rare sight, since our village isn’t part of the famous and overcrowded Camino Francés. After kisses on both cheeks, I run down the steps and make my way toward them.
I enjoy these encounters with the pilgrims of Santiago, walking with them for a few kilometers and sharing the bounty from Brigitte’s basket before bidding them farewell with a “Buen Camino.” Later, I’ll paint them the way I’ve come to, in soft light, without discernible faces.
Content, I slowly walk back to the flat, to stovetop espresso and a canvas that awaits a story.
