Post 7 – June 6, 2016, An angel takes a jog

  Baby Doe 1 here. Have you ever felt something inside you urging you on, but you fought it?
  We’re holding well to our plan to meet every morning, 7:00 a.m., at Echo Park in downtown Los Angeles and run around the little man-made lake. Prepare, prepare, prepare for the Camino. So here we are again. And our fearful leader, Tom Gehring, is barking orders to us and urging us on, and, of course concerned, maybe downright fearful, that we won’t be able to handle the rigors of a 500 mile trek across the north of Spain to the great Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.

  I’m sitting on the bridge. I ran about 50 steps before stopping. Then I walked a little, then I gave up. I figure there’s no hope I make my goal of running around this lake once, just once, before we leave for Spain.
  By now Nick has told us all about Sebastiani and what happened yesterday morning. Nobody really didn’t believe him, he’s Nick, we can always count on him, but whatever, we moved on. Always plenty to do to distract us at the Café, life, things to do, and plan for the Camino.
  And as I’m handwriting this into my chronicle (journal to some of you), up walks this man and he says,
  “let’s go.”
  And I say, who are you? And he says, “Sebastiani.”
  “Like the wine?” I say stupidly. I remember hitting the wine closet in my foster home days.
  And he says, “let’s go.”
  And I know what he means. And before I know it, I take my 50 steps, then a hundred.

  And before I know it, I’m actually running. Maybe it’s jogging. I don’t know what it is. And I hear Tommy urging us on, and then I realize Sebastiani is urging us on. And then Tommy notices Sebastiani, and both of them are urging us on.
  And the best way I can describe it is that myself, Nick, Harold, Tempie, Norm, Tom (Tommy, to me), and Sebastiani are jogging along.
  Together.

  And Sebastiani is telling us to feel the rhythm, and how to look up and out . . . way in front of us . . . and all our steps seem to synchronize and get lighter, and Sebastiani is telling us that we will need to remember this when we’re on the Camino,
  that it’s hard. Remember this feeling, don’t fight it, turn it over,
  and suddenly, seven days before my goal
  faster than I ever expected,
  I had run the entire way around that little lake in Echo Park.
  And I looked for Sebastiani to thank him
  . . . but he was gone.
  . . .