A Conversation With Russ Eanes, Author of The Walk of a Lifetime

Russ Eanes is a writer, walker and cyclist from Harrisonburg, Virginia.

He has several decades of experience in the publishing business, most recently as the Executive Director of MennoMedia and Publisher at Herald Press, the publisher for the Mennonite Church in the U.S. and Canada. He now works full-time as a freelance writer, editor, publishing consultant and coach. He grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Hartford and Chicago, where he spent as much of his time as he could in the outdoors.

From an early age, he had ambitions to become a writer and to travel the world. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English in 1979 and from Boise State University with a Masters in Public Administration. He also studied theology and pastoral ministry at Southern Seminary. In addition to his work in publishing, he has worked for several decades in ministry, including work as a pastor and a coordinator of local services for people living in impoverished communities.

He has also been a university administrator. Even as a book publisher, he never dreamed of writing his own book. Writing The Walk of a Lifetime: 500 Miles on the Camino De Santiago, was a project which he says was as much of an adventure as walking the Camino de Santiago itself. Besides walking and cycling, he enjoys reading, gardening, photography, making music and spending time with his family, and continues to have a passion for the outdoors and for the environment. He lives in Harrisonburg, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with his wife, Jane, several of his adult children and his five grandchildren. Russ enjoys speaking to groups, both locally and far away, about the Camino de Santiago, trekking as a way of touring for older adults, about the importance of pursuing dreams as one grows older and about writing his first book at age 62.

Your book, The Walk of a Lifetime, describes your 500-mile pilgrimage along the Camino De Santiago. You mention that you had been a life-long walker and cyclist before taking on this challenge. How important was all that physical exercise in getting you ready to take on the Camino De Santiago?

On the one hand, it was important to me. I wanted to be sure that I could do this pilgrimage without injury. I was, after all, 61 years old. While I went on the walk for spiritual reasons, I also proved to myself that I was still physically capable of doing something challenging, after age 60. It gave me confidence.

I had heard and read about far too many people who had their dream of walking to Santiago cut short because of an injury. While we can never be completely sure how it will go, training beforehand is a good way of conditioning your mind and body for this journey and to make sure that you can succeed.

When I talk to older people about walking the Camino, I stress that anyone in decent shape—you don’t have to be an athlete—can do this.

 

If you had to offer one piece of advice to anyone contemplating such an endeavor, what would you say to them?

I would say that if you are contemplating it, then you are likely feeling its call, its pull. I recommend that the best way to do it is to take off at least 6 weeks and do the whole thing in one go. Being cut free from “ordinary life” for that long will have life-changing effects. You will NEVER regret it.

You were 61 years of age when walking the Camino. How much of an impact did that have to do with your experience? And looking back on it, what were its benefits?

I really wanted to prove to myself that inner change was possible after age 60. Decades before I had been told that our personalities are “set in stone” once we reach that age and that we are not capable of change anymore, neither mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or physically. I wasn’t trying to prove something to anyone other than myself, that I could still change.

I learned that it was possible to slow down and simply live for the day, for the moment. I learned that it was possible to live quite happily with no more possessions than what fit into a 16-pound pack. I learned that it was marvelous to wake up, strap on the pack and head off into the dawn with nothing more to concern me than what I might encounter around the next bend. I discovered that after having lived a life of non-conformity, as a bit of a misfit, I found a place—or a road—where I “fit.” I made “sense.”

I had hours and hours with nothing to do but walk, watch, and wonder. No meetings, no place I had to be except eventually in the next town or village. No one to meet except the pilgrim up ahead or trudging behind me. Some months after returning I wrote, “And suddenly I was wide open. Open to the next turn in the road. Open to the next village or town, the next mountain or river. Open to the next person. No strict plan, just an idea of where I was to go. When you are open, then the magic happens. Or better yet, you discover the magic, the magic that was always waiting there, always around the corner, but you were too busy, too scheduled, too much in a hurry to stop, to notice, to appreciate it.”

Towards the end of your journey, your wife joined you for the final week of your trek. In your book, you write:

“It was a gorgeous day for picture taking. I stopped to take a particular shot of sheep pastures and hills to the south. Every few feet the angle got better, or the light got better, so I stopped, re-framed and focused it, and took another shot. Then I just stopped – it hit me that there was no way that I was going to get the ultimate shot. The calculating, the thinking, were distracting me from the moment. I already had over 2,000 photos from the Camino. I decided that I would commit this time, this place, to memory and recall forever that it was beautiful. No need to record it, except in my memory; no need for another picture. I put the camera away for the time being, along with the guidebook. Thoreau said, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” I was rich in scenery, I would be rich in memory; I could “let it alone;” I could do without another picture. I just wanted to drink it all in, let the moment saturate me. And it did.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out my sheet of prayers – I had them memorized, so I really didn’t need it – and as I prayed my morning office, I stopped when I got to this verse in Psalm 37:

‘Let the dawn bring news of your faithful love,

For I place my trust in you.

Show me the road I must travel

for you to relieve my heart.’

I repeated the sentence, ‘show me the way to relieve my heart,’ several times. This had been in my prayers for a long time: five years? Ten years? I had prayed it through difficult times of work, through the many pressures of family life, through my many moves, through my inner dis-comfort and mis-fit in society. Who was I? Why was I so different? Where did I fit? What road, what path through life was the way I was supposed to follow? Up until then, I wasn’t certain.

Yet at that moment, in prayer, it hit me: this was the road. This was the road, the Way, but more than the physical road, this was Life itself. Not just the walking, the outdoors, not just the culture: it was all of it wrapped together, having all the time I needed, not being in a hurry, not having any agenda. It was a day to be fully alive, a day I return to over and over in my memory. I knew right then that I should never forget this moment, this answer to prayer.

It was a gift of grace.”

 

I’m curious, in the two years since you walked the Camino De Santiago, how do you see that adventure still influencing your life?

The Camino upended my life, gave me a hunger for adventure that I’d always had, but been too constrained by responsibility, to explore.

I’m itching now for an adventure, for a life of adventure. I had thought—two years ago—that by now I would have embarked on quite a few already. I could not have imagined that I would spend most of the past 18 months at home, or at the very least near home. Stuck. I took a full-time job, much to my surprise, but as soon as it feels “safe” I’m heading out again, with my pack. First stop is Italy, where my wife and I hope to walk from Florence to Assisi on the Way of St. Francis. I want to avoid too much planning, after that.

I made a goal last year that I would write five more books in the next five years. The books are an adventure in themselves, but they are also based upon adventure. I’m trying to live my life—in my sixties—as if I’m still in my twenties.

When I’m discouraged by everything going on with the pandemic, I come back to those words, to that day, on my way to Sarria. I remember that I could experience grace, but only if I could allow it to come to me.

 

Related to the previous question, I’m interested in knowing what were the two biggest takeaways you had from walking the Camino De Santiago?

It’s hard to limit it to two, but I’d say the most important lesson has to do with slowing down. I was uncoupled for six weeks from schedules, demands, etc.  Life was stripped to its essentials and when that happened, my mind cleared, my attention got wider and simpler at the same time. I noticed small things, like birds’ songs, or people who needed someone to lend an ear. In that unlimited space creativity also emerged from me, like the creativity that it took to write my book.

A second big lesson is “you can do it.” For me, the very first day, when I climbed over the Pyrenees and arrived in Spain, was a huge boost to my confidence. I set caution aside and went for it. From then on, I felt I could do anything. I come back to that again and again.

How has your overall philosophy of life been changed?

I see a need to disconnect and go on a long walk or bike ride every year, multiple times per year. I see my 60s as a decade of learning and growth, exploration, and adventure. I don’t want to waste a day of it. I’m curious about people, about the world and I want to learn everything that I can. I want to write, to learn to write better, to share my insights and experiences with the world.

 

On a strictly professional level, you’ve had over twenty years of experience in the publishing industry. To what extent was that a benefit to writing your book. To what extent might it have been a hindrance?

Being a publisher was mostly an advantage. I knew that I would have to do lots of marketing myself, build a brand. I knew that I would need to work with good editors and good designers. I kept my expectations modest and considered the greatest success to be in being in contact with readers, which I still do. But I have sold nearly 3,500 copies. I understood that I was going to have to do the sales work, built on my marketing work. I knew that I was going to have to promote. All of these expectations came out of my experience. Working with a good editor, by the way, made the book much better.

The only disadvantage in being a publisher was that I wasn’t sure I really wanted to write it. I knew how much work a book was and was unclear if I wanted to put in that kind of sustained work. But now that I’ve done it, I love it and want to do more.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

I want to say that it’s possible, even in your 60s, to realize important dreams and to that end, I come back to something I saw painted on a rock, along the Camino. “Better to die with your memories, than your dreams.” Keep dreaming. You can do it.

For more on Russ Eanes, click here