The Ghost
Day 70 — June 4, 2026
Wake-up feel: 6.
03:44. Birds in the dark. Cold in the tent, damp, yesterday's rain still in the ground. 04:04, up and out. Mist rising from the fields, then the sun. Exercises. Ready for the day.
Then the city — the place for the early birds. Electricity, internet, coffee.
Since yesterday evening, back in the quiet of the garden — or is it only a base camp — I have been turning over the days since I came inland from the Baltic. Accident, or resonance?
On the coast the path wound between the Bodden and the reed beds on one side, the ripening rapeseed and the rising sun on the other. Birds of all kinds, wild pigs, a roe buck, deer. Wind, clouds, planes — domestic, war and transport. Omens, or just objects. Discernment. Here: roads, cars, people. No winding way.
But as I walked the city, place to place, I saw. I listened. Like a ghost — seeing and hearing people I have known, worked with, taught with, discussed with, disagreed with, lived with. So many people I know here. Family and foe, the children I have taught, the most friendly, polite and down to earth street sweeper I know, a politician or two, and the strangers.
A security guard at the Ausländerbehörde. The clerk at her window. A father and his children, waiting their turn. An elderly woman from the west, serving coffee in a café. A bus driver and a guard just off shift, who speak German and want no other language, and say so.
Doors opened. A seat at the head of the table.
Better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither. (Proverbs 25)
I met people from Ukraine, from the war zone. They left families behind — husbands, wives, children. These were the ones with light in their eyes.
I listened to the past. I listened to the present. I listened to the future.
I listened to them all.
Seven places were on the table. The number was never the question. Now I am listening, the direction has been read. I am here to serve, with. The needs of the people who have been close to me all these years belong in this too.
Day 70 — Phase 11 — Thought — Gallbladder — Onyx — Ubuntu
Gut Nisdorf, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Baltic Coast
© 2025–2026 Michel Garand | A Pilgrim's Fitness Plan | CC BY-SA 4.0
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