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W e d n e s d ay, J u n e 17, 2026
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Danny Heitman AT RANDOM
Traveling reminds me of wonders of home As my wife and I landed back in Louisiana after a trip to California last month, I began thinking of a Jane Kenyon poem that I treasure. It’s called “Coming Home at Twilight in Late Summer,” and it’s about all the urgencies that greet you after you’ve been gone from home awhile. “So much to be done,” Kenyon laments, “the unpacking, the mail and papers … the grass needed mowing.” Her poem reminded me what was ahead when we turned into our driveway. A home misses you while you’re gone, which is a good thing, I suppose, although the longing can take complicated forms. As soon as we placed our bags into the car at the airport, our little household, peeved by our absence, began to air its grievances. The air conditioning in our car went out as we paid the airport parking fee, signaling a big repair bill that made me wince a bit after our vacation splurge. Pulling into the driveway after our ride home, I noticed that the gas lantern on our porch had blown out in one of the rainstorms we’d missed while we were gone. Fire ant mounds rose like volcanoes from the corners of our lot, and our grass, of course, was as tall as corn.
PHOTO BY DANNY HEITMAN
Danny Heitman’s recent trip to California included great views, like this beach scene in La Jolla.
Inside, a kind someone had saved our newspapers, arranged as neatly as cordwood just beyond the threshold. A little mountain of unopened parcels sat on the rug, and there was a stack of junk mail at its summit. Slowly, we began to empty our luggage of laundry, which quickly formed a hill near the washer. Like a midden of relics from a lost civilization, it yielded small clues about the life we’d led on the road. There were swimsuits from our evening in a hot tub, a shirt stained with caramel from an afternoon at an ice cream parlor and socks still crusted with sand from a lovely Pacific beach. Over several days, we reclaimed our regular life. I pushed our mower over the high blades of grass, and the yard shed its shaggy excess and revealed a calmer, saner self. I restocked our birdfeeders, repairing one that had been pillaged by a squirrel. The garden fountain, which had shorted out when we weren’t around, is fixed and working again. It’s only now, in the return to routine, that I’ve had time to think about the second part of Kenyon’s poem. In the concluding stanza, after reciting the humdrum list of chores that awaits a returning traveler, she remarks on a household pear tree, heavy with fruit, that had worked up its bounty while she and her husband were on the road. What Kenyon seems to say is that leaving home is a good way to savor its wonders when you return — something I’m learning again now that our luggage is back on the shelf.
PHOTO FROM GETTY IMAGES
Dating back to the ninth century, pilgrims have walked various routes of the Camino de Santiago, ‘The Way of Saint James,’ to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.
Spiritual JOURNEY Baton Rouge walkers of Camino de Santiago share stories of churros, chocolate, beauty and pain BY JOY HOLDEN
AT
Staff writer
29, Dr. Heidi Nowakowski had been walking for four days across Spain with her brother, Josh, 25, and her friend Rowan Knight from Scotland. As happens with siblings, the big sister fussed at her little brother for oversleeping. They argued. He got ready. She was not. He hit the road without her and her friend — and he wasn’t at their preplanned meeting spot that night. When Nowakowski and Knight arrived at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela the next day at noon, her brother was there waiting for them with water in hand. “Then we had lunch and churros and hot chocolate. It just made the arrival all the more sweet,” she said. “My brother and I are very close. So we fight a lot, but we always make up.” The pilgrims were three of 530,919 who walked the Camino de Santiago, earning a Compostela
PROVIDED PHOTO
Josh and Heidi Nowakowski pose with Rowan Knight, center, in front of the zero kilometer marker in Santiago after they had arrived. Pilgrim Certificate in 2025. Twenty years ago that number was 93,923, evidence of the increase in popularity of the journey. Many make the walk without receiving the Compostela certificate, which requires proof of the
journey using a Camino Pilgrim Passport, with certain stipulations — either 100 kilometers walked or ridden on horseback or 200 kilometers cycled.
ä See CAMINO, page 2G
State makes picks for National Book Fest Staff report Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and the Louisiana Center for the Book at the State Library of Louisiana have announced Louisiana’s two “Great Reads from Great Places” selections for the 2026 National Book Festival, which will be held Aug. 22 in Washington, D.C. Louisiana’s 2026 selection for young readers is “Soggy Like Cush
Cush” by Karly Pierre, illustrated by Kristen Uroda. A celebration of Creole culture, family and community, the story follows Petite Marie and her Gran-moman as a rainy day turns into an adventure filled with friendship, tradition and Creole cooking. Louisiana’s 2026 adult readers’ selection is “You Are My Sunshine: Jimmy Davis & the Biography of a Song” by Robert Mann. The book
explores the story behind one of America’s most beloved songs, weaving together the rise of country music, Louisiana politics, World War II and the civil rights movement into a narrative of culture and history. The National Book Festival is organized by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Each
ä See BOOKS, page 2G