We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kathy Elkind a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kathy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mission is to encourage slow travel, especially through walking adventures. Instead of seeing five cities in a week, pick a region and walk for a week or more.

In 2018 my husband and I took an adult gap year and walked the length of Europe on the GR5, Grande Randonnee Cinq. Starting in The Netherlands we walked south through Belgium, Luxembourg and the whole length of France for 98 days. Walking village to village you see, hear, and taste Life with a capital “L” in the country you are walking through. When you wear a backpack on your back you are welcomed into the village and taken care of. Even though we did not speak French we communicated with body language, Google translate, and kindness.

When we returned to the USA I had a powerful internal drive to share our adventure and my new love of walking. I spent three years taking memoir writing classes, writing and editing and finally finding a publisher for my memoir, To Walk It Is To See It: 1 Couple, 98 Days, 1400 Miles on Europe’s GR5.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m sixty-four years old. I was fifty-seven going on fifty-eight when we walked 1400 miles from the North Sea to the warm Mediterranean. One of my main questions/concerns as we set off was: could my post-menopausal body walk the length of Europe over the Vosges, Jura, and the Alps? A wonderful aspect of the GR5 is that it starts out flat then has rolling hills and finally three mountain ranges that progress to more challenging the further south you walk.

My body did make it and it got stronger and stronger. We averaged 12 miles a day. By the time we got to the Alps I could walk for seven or eight hours with elevation gains of 4000 ft a day. I did this by listening to my body and going at my own pace not my husbands.

We learned that a lighter pack is better. So we embraced simplicity more deeply and left behind the items that were not essential. Everyday we wore the same clothes so we did not have to expend mental energy deciding what to wear. Everyday we washed our socks and underwear. Life became all about food, shelter and keeping our feet happy (no blisters). Out on the trail everyday in nature our walking became meditative and magical. My footsteps through the ferns over and over took me on an ethereal journey.

We have all read how being in nature, moving (exercising), and meditation are all GOOD for our brains and body. For 98 days I lived it.

Nature
Movement
Meditation
Simplicity

These are my muses, my inspiration. And I hope my memoir inspires other to walk. We don’t have to walk across Europe to be in nature. We can go to a park, garden or the woods. We can walk and meditate almost anywhere. We can simplify our lives, stripping away belongings and relationships that are no longer needed.

We fell in love with walking. We have since walked the Andalusian coast to coast trail in southern Spain, the Cammino Materano in Puglia, Italy and the Cammino Natural de Parch in the Apennines, Italy. To walk a country is to see a country.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I did not learn to read until seventh grade. I’m dyslexic. I struggled through all my schooling including a masters in Education but I kept going. My mother always told me I was smart but my brain was wired differently. I was lucky and privileged to have parents that cared and could afford tutoring for years.

I worked many different jobs over the years: baker, elementary teacher, reading teacher, stay-at-home-mom, health coach and teacher of Mindful Self-Compassion. Any tasks for business or work that entailed words/writing always took me longer than the average person but I just kept going..

In 2011 I read the book, The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock L. Eide, and Fernette F. Eide. The idea that my brain was good at somethings for example: seeing the big picture and seeing interconnectedness had always been with me but finally reading the science and that others with dyslexia had strengths boosted my confidence and resilience.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The resources I wish I had known about and used were my own internal resources, my strengths.

I never thought I could write a book but when I had the strong desire to do it, I ended up using my strengths to come in through the backdoor of writing. Let me explain. Most writers have been writing since they were five or seven. They love words. They read and read. They play with words.

I was afraid of words. But my strength, athleticism allowed me to walk the length of Europe. Walking day after day was therapeutic and I became embodied. When I went to write about the journey I could place myself back in the scene. My brain, body and heart could remember what it felt like to climb through the Alps with cow bells echoing off the rock walls and wild flowers dancing in the breeze. A good writer takes the reader into the scene so that they are feeling the journey.

Another strength, emotional intelligence, allowed me to access and write dialog that showed the multilayered complex relationship with my husband, Jim and my character, me. A good story has conflict so I had to be honest and raw in my writing and share vulnerable scenes of our relationship. I’ve failed so many times in my life (thank you Dyslexia) that sharing vulnerability is not hard for me.

So how did I befriend words? I started making lists and lists of words, on my phone, on my computer, and a huge list of words on my study wall. I paid attention and the words came. I read and read and the words came. I listened and the words came. I trusted myself and the words came.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kathyelkind.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathyelkind/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KathyElkindauthor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kathyelkind6282