LAYLA:
Maybe certain lifestyles make it easier to comprehend that everything is always in motion. If you travel often, or work closely with nature, you’re constantly confronted with change: new places, new people, buildings appearing and disappearing, the cycle of seasons taking effect on the landscape. The transience of life stays close to your senses.
Whereas if you’re mostly at home (as I have been lately), you can fall into the illusion that every day is melding into one. You can miss the quieter shifts- days growing longer, loved ones moving a little slower, flowers in your room blooming before turning dry and brittle.
Life is movement. Constant change. Perhaps that’s what makes it so simultaneously exciting and terrifying.
The way Whyte frames life as a pilgrimage is striking: “Most of all, a pilgrim is someone abroad in a world of impending revelation where something is about to happen, including, most fearfully, and as part of their eventual arrival, their own disappearance.”
This week’s chapter is probably the deepest I’ve encountered so far and the hardest to gather my thoughts around. It speaks to the journey of life and its inevitable destination: death. The sheer magnitude of that concept can be overwhelming to contemplate.
Whyte also says, “Strangely at our arrival at that last transition along the way is exactly where we have the opportunity to understand who made the journey and to appreciate the privilege of having existed as a particularity, an immutable person; a trajectory whole unto itself.”
But I’m not sure all of us are granted that perspective. Life is often cut short- it can end in sudden and unexpected ways, before there is time to reflect on the shape of the journey as a whole.
I hope that if I’m lucky enough to live a long and healthy life, I’ll be able to look back on a pilgrimage that held a merciful balance of joy and pain.

PATRIZIA:
Reading Pilgrim evoked an almost epic image in my mind that I will try to describe: a multitude of people walking, some in groups, some in pairs, others alone. The young ones striding forward with eager, quick steps; the elders moving slowly, weary. Along the path, someone would fall, someone would rush to help, some would get back up, some never would again. Those who stayed by their side would pause, some for a brief moment, some lingering for a little while; a few would stay behind, no longer willing to continue their journey. Toward what? I could see no destination—only people stretching endlessly into the horizon. 
I can’t say that I felt joy or sorrow while mentally contemplating this human flock—only a deep interest in observing their behaviour. Along the way, they would meet, speak to one another or ignore each other, love or hate each other, understand or misread each other. And every interaction would assign to each of them expressions, emotions, identities, character, and, so, their own uniqueness.
We are travellers, Whyte says, “made real through contact with others”. “We all need help—visible or invisible—to survive”. Year after year we live, learn, remember, mature, fail and succeed, yet we are never strong enough, never truly ready, never fully complete, rarely content. 
Balancing on the edge of ruin and redemption, we learn to fully savour and appreciate moments and stages of our life only when – startled, and for just an instant – we finally grasp its utter fragility.

BRUNELLA:
Travelling is part of who we are. It isn’t just about moving from one place to another; above all, it’s a transformative experience. Nobody comes back quite the same as when they set off.
The reasons we pack a rucksack or a suitcase are many and varied: boredom, depression, a spirit of adventure, stress, the need for change, a break from routine, a longing for freedom, a desire for solitude… Travel can be a conscious decision aimed at a specific destination, or it can have no clear direction at all. It can be temporary or permanent.
People set off to leave behind the problems of a life that feels weighed down; sometimes they set off to disappear. A journey can be a carefully considered choice, or an escape. And starting it doesn’t always guarantee an arrival.
In the past, pilgrims travelled on foot and survived on alms or theft; they were often viewed with suspicion and seen as outsiders. Pilgrimage once had a deeply religious meaning, a journey of atonement. Today, travel is far more comfortable and convenient, and it offers one of the best ways to come into contact with different cultures and realities, to speak different languages, to form meaningful friendships. It is an experience that allows us to see both the world and ourselves differently, to rethink our lives, and to discover that we belong to a world without borders.
Unfortunately, I haven’t travelled much, but every journey I’ve taken has made me better, and I have beautiful memories of each one.
At my age, I find myself becoming a kind of pilgrim in my imagination too, even travelling through infinite universes.