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         On a road perhaps less traveled, but it had bought her here just the same, being let off at the main gates of Bradford airport.  Mitch and Laura, a couple from the church, tucked away on the Mohawk Trail, where Chloe sang in the choir, had given her a lift. On the drive down  from the mountains they told her of their Mont Blanc wayfaring in the Alps from  Chamonix to Mount Blanc, backpacking, sleeping in rough shelters, and  having to carry sufficient food and water along because villages were so few and far in between.
         After their goodbyes, Chloe strode into the bustling airport, her steps  light and free. Heads turned. Shining ash blond hair bouncing off her shoulders didn't hurt. Her body moved in a fluid manner. She had a pleasant sense of being fully present, yet detached..It still took her off guard when she caught a man turning after her. But she knew better than to take it personally It so had nothing to do with who she was inside, and who she wanted to become.. The last year of working out twice a week in the women's Nautilus room did not hurt either. Nor the payoff from the discipline in her food plan. All hadsome little to do with this happy confidence that is, well, attractive.Women's faces lit up with a smile as their eyes brushed in passing..But it was something much more than mere physicality, it was a light in the heart..
          Her luggage was a vintage Jensport back- pack with well padded shoulder straps in a teal color she loved; and had owned since way back in college but never really used so it looked pretty new considering, and was in fact, perfect. Her hand tooled leather purse was looped around her belt and lay flat against her hip. A petite natural blonde, (well, if you didn't count the lemon juice she sometimes squeezed on her hair as she was drying it and absorbing some vitamin D on the deck of her little cottage in the woods where she had left her dog, worried perhaps in the wrong hands), her curves showed to her advantage by a pink tank top and tailored by a loose, short-sleeved black sweater; snappy with narrow jeans and black Timberline boots.       
          It was so early.no one else was at the check in. The airline people did a  little double take when they realized she only had that one small back pack for a transatlantic flight.
           Life was mysterious, full of possibilities; everything in the here and now. There were a few inconsistencies perhaps,  but she'd  work them out later to see what if anything needed attention..Now,this was all there was, and all was good. At the first security stop, when she smiled at the officer, his face lit up. A charming, pretty girl smiling at him, not one of these pinch nosed models with a sour face. He didn't use that formal official voice with her, but his social one

            "Where are you traveling today Ms.Fodor?" he said flipping through her passport.

            "Santiago de Compostela, Spain."

            "Why are you flying to Spain today?" he said his voice inadvertently slipping back to chilling formality.

            "To walk the Camino de Santiago."

            "What is that?" his.ears pricked up..

            "It's a walking pilgrimage, which dates back to the Middle Ages, to Santiago de Compostela, in north western Spain. You carry everything on your back, and sleep at hostels along the way in villages."

            "I've never heard of it. Are you walking alone?"

             "I'm meeting up with a friend in Dublin, just a sheer coincidence my flight connected with his on the plane to Santiago" she laughed.

              "That's good, meeting up with your friend in Dublin."

             "Well, we've never actually met; just got to know each other over a couple of years on a movie site." just as she heard herself saying this, she realized it was information she did not have to share. Spilling, that is what she was working on extinguishing. To say less, be more enigmatic, not try to define everything.

            "Now that is interesting," he perked up," but you've talked?"

            "No."

            "You've seen his photograph?"

            "Yes." Well, if you could call the bad images he'd taken of himself in a mirror doing the job. What was it with people taking self portraits in mirrors? Didn't their cameras have timers? The image she'd sent of herself (a self portrait taken with a timer that she'd made for her passport picture) he emailed back was a Magyar princess.

             "Hmmm, well, I'd say that's unique" the officer shook his head "you don't hear of something like that too often. Meeting up on line like that, somebody across the sea, but never talking,  and then meeting for the first time, on a pilgrimage. Like in a movie" he smiled as he handed her passport back to her "Have a wonderful experience, you and your friend."

            And it was bound to be. Whatever was going to happen, she had to prove nothing, if she could only be mindful enough to say little and listen much..