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Relish In the Tread - Work of Fiction about the Way and Pilgrim life and Minimalism

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steve hunter

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Time of past OR future Camino
Walked it last summer to Finisterre from St. Jean and in two weeks will walk from Vatican to Istanbul.
Soon after I arrived out of the womb, I was running out the door of my house. Soon after that my house was split in half. For the following years I would bounce around as my mom went to University and then, after that found us some foundation. I moved around quite a bit and went to a number of schools and made a number of friends who I'd leave then have to start all over again. leaving the nest was easy after graduating high school. I'm sure many can relate. Someone gave me On The Road when I decided to hitchhike across Canada. In Alaska, I found a woman there who'd been traveling for ten years and crossed 50 countries. She blew my mind. The following year, I left Canada for the road and into what I would later learn, the Way.
Stumbling over myself, struggling to keep my cool while moving through circles of pseudo hippies, I met a Hungarian woman in India. We had a long night of ketamine and guitars and a sunrise at Charlie's in Anjuna.
"You're already a Pilgrim," she said. I had no idea what she was on about. To a Canadian, pilgrims were the people who came to the First Nations and broke bread to make trade agreements in what was later known as Thanksgiving. She then explained the Camino de Santiago. I didn't realize it was a franchise. Had I known that, I might have skipped it all together. Good thing I didn't. And of course, I picked the busiest route. The Frances. Well, I didn't love the commercialization, but my family I came to cherish. And man, did I find my internal Pilgrim. I'd traveled before that but afterwards, it was on! The following summer, I walked to Istanbul from Rome. I showed up in Istanbul with 100 euro, not a job, not a friend, not a place to crash. But hey made it work. Walking the Way, it showed me how much was really possible by pursuing one's absurdity. The Way to Istanbul was lonely, tough and filled with hardship. But I met the best hospitality I could hope for and it changed me. For the next years, I wrote a book that I recently published called, Relish In the Tread. I didn't want to write just another Camino story, so I didn't. It's a fiction about lost loves and water poisoning, and thieves and disparity but also family and truth, philosophy and historical anecdotes about places like Albania. I read an autobiography about Mother Theresa, only realizing I'd been hosted by one of her charity houses. Like I said, it's a fiction.
My love for Hemingway, Henry Miller, Celine's Voyage Au Bout de La Nuit... Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out... Down and Out in Paris and London.. I couldn't write from anything other than my own truth. And I hope, I know that will be felt. I know that the pilgrims who've already lived it, will live it again in these pages. And for those who've not yet walked, will get going to their route's starting point even swifter. I met a guy somewhere around Sarria, where all the 100's start walking for their pilgrim certificates. I was pretty bummed by the masses of people. He'd walked from Munich to Compostella and he was on his Way back. Not a dime when he left. Walked the whole way both directions without a penny. He'd lived a life of plenty and was disgusted with himself. I thought, "Minimalism. Well, that alone is a theme worth discussing."
I hope you'll give my work a chance to live and inspire. Relish In the Tread available online on all formats and devices and paperback both on amazon and barnes & noble. I'm hoping soon it will be available in the local store here if Ivar accepts me. I was born a pilgrim but had to go walking to really figure it out, now I'm cursed with the Way guiding me for the rest of my time on this planet. And the book is self-published. I mean, I'm pretty punk rock. Who'd hitchhike 120,000 km across 5 continents and walked another 5,000 km on top of that?
Here's the link for Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1738912906?tag=casaivar02-20
 

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