Rilke, Harold Fry, and Pilgrimage

I recently saw a movie based upon a book I read called The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.  The book, by British author Rachel Joyce,  moved me greatly, by that I mean it provoked me, and then continues to linger in my memory, coming up like a line from a poem, or a "meme" in contemporary terms, here and there as I go about my daily (mostly) orderly life.  (At 75, being "orderly" becomes a true necessity for self preservation).  Appropriately, I bought the book in the bookstore at Heathrow Airport in London.

In encountering Harold Fry, one sees someone very ordinary, it seems.  He's an old man, very English, retired and sedate.  He lives with his wife of many years, and they barely speak any more - routine, it seems, is all they really share.  

Harold receives an unexpected letter, just a short note, from a co-worker he knew years ago.  She tells him that she is in a hospice in Scotland.  Harold  writes a brief letter of sympathy, very proper and short,  and decides to walk to the nearest post box to mail it.  Except, when he gets to the box, for some reason, he just keeps on going, without knowing why.  And just like that, her enters into his unlikely, unexpected, Pilgrimage to the landscapes of his memory, his heart, and the people he meets on the road.  

Perhaps, when I think of the novel, or the movie, I find myself envying Harold.  I often feel pulled away myself, as if the Camino  lies just over the hill, just around the block.  In my imagination, there is a trail calling, just under a cover of fallen leaves, a  parting in a forest somewhere that invites me to pick up my backpack and follow.    But.......... 

This poem by Rilke has often also come to mind. 

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

and walks outdoors, 

and keeps on walking,

because of a church

that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him

as if he were dead.

And another man, 

who remains inside his own house,

dies there, 

inside the dishes and in the glasses,

so that his children have to go far out into the world

toward that same church, 

which he forgot.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Robert Bly