Chartres: A Reflection on the Journey—When the Road Comes Full Circle

From the Black Forest to Chartres, from mushrooms to midnight light shows, this journey was one of unexpected quiet magic of being exactly where you’re meant to be.

Leaving Triberg and the Black Forest felt bittersweet. That place, elusive as the idea I had to come here, had captured my imagination. I’d gone chasing after fairy tales—half-expecting to stumble upon Hansel and Gretel or a big bad wolf. Instead, the forest gifted me something far more surreal: a polar bear, plucked straight from a dream I’d had the night before. Not a bad outcome, when I think about it. Definitely safer.

Now, on the train, I was retracing a path I was supposed to take at the start of this journey—from Miles Copeland’s castle in France to Chartres. Back then, I wasn’t sure I could navigate Europe, let alone France. Funny how six weeks of solo travel can change your perspective.

I settled into my seat with my watercolors and blank postcards. A couple sat across from me, but I barely noticed. There was work to do: a red-and-white mushroom painting, inspired by a hike in Finland. Mushrooms, it seems, had become an accidental theme of this trip—popping up everywhere since that hike. As I painted, the woman across from me tapped the table, pointing.

“We just went on a mushroom tour,” she said with a smile. “Saw ones just like that.” Of course, I didn’t miss the opportunity to chat it up with them.

She was from England and he from Scotland, married and united in their love of fungi. We talked of mushrooms, travel, and a life changing app I wasn’t aware of: What3Words, a clever tool for pinpointing precise locations using three simple words. If you are not familiar with it, it is pretty fun to discover.

I surprised myself by revealing bits of my journey I wouldn’t even share with close friends, like how I’d planned to walk the Camino when I was en route to Europe but ended up forging my own path instead. They suggested an Italian pilgrimage I’ll keep secret for now—a treasure to hoard, at least until I do it.

When I finally reached Chartres, I was well educated on Mushrooms and had a few fun stories from my new friends. My hotel was a short five-minute walk from the train station—or should’ve been. For me, it took over an hour. As a scenic artist, every texture, every aged stone and weathered surface is a siren song. I took photo after photo, each one a potential future reference, even though most will likely sit untouched. Still, this year feels different. Maybe I’ll actually do something with them. Goals, right? I had a 2TB hard drive filled with images to share…one day.

Side track: I have so many photos from all my travels. Ones I was always going to share, one day and now, some of those places don’t even exist anymore. Life is weird that way.

My hotel, perched behind all the visible city, was a gem. I scored a room with a perfect view for a time-lapse, though I barely lingered long enough to wash my face before heading back out. Just steps from my hotel stood the cathedral—empty, to my amazement. No crowds. No tourists. Just me, soaking it all in. Inside, I had a quiet word with Jesus. He’s always popping up in my life when I least expected.

I wondered through the cathedral and took a shit load of pictures. Is it sacrilegious to say a shit load in the same sentence as cathedral? I was told there was a labyrinth in the back but when I went to venture through it, it was closed off.

Later, I found a cozy spot for dinner in the almost empty town. Despite the language barrier I was able to order more than a hotdog. Afterwards I returned to my room just as the rain began to fall. It was late and I decided to go to bed. I had no sooner put on PJ’s when from my window, I noticed an illuminating light blue in the distance.

What is this???

At first, I thought I was imagining things—aliens, maybe. (I am always hoping for an alien invasion.) I stood from my hotel window talking to myself and trying to suss it out what this light was.

Curiosity won. Pajamas off, clothes back on, and out into the pouring nighttime rain I went.

I turned the corner into the main square. What I found was mesmerizing: a light show that held me captive for over two hours. Colors and patterns danced across the cathedral, shifting and transforming in ways that defied expectation. I couldn’t believe my luck. I hadn’t even committed to visit Chartres, yet here I was, witnessing something unforgettable.

The rain fell hard. I called a friend back home. I needed someone to witness this with me. I couldn’t get them on facetime. I stood there, drenched with rain, and trying to explain the sight before me. I am sure the “oooing” and “awwing” and was probably totally annoying over the phone for twenty minutes.

It’s just that, there as hardly anyone there! I couldn’t believe I was basically getting this show all to myself!I felt a range of gratitude course through my person until it came out of my eyes.

When we finally hung up, I was making my way back to my hotel when a memory flooded in. A rewind back to 2017.

My husband had just died.

I was in NYC at a party filled with people I didn’t know. I don’t remember much of that year, his death loomed so huge. So I don’t remember at the moment what I was doing there. I’d have to look back in my journal. I just remember standing on the balcony listening to everyone with their trite problems and feeling very out of place because my whole world had just gone to dust.

So I walked out. And on. I had no clue where I was staying or where I was. I just knew I didn’t fit. After a long walk I plopped down on the edge of a curb and opened my phone. I called a work friend, twenty years my senior. He said I could call him any time and this was the time.

He picked up. I broke down. He gave advice. I listened. I hung up and picked up my heart from the concrete sidewalk. I took a cab back to where I was staying. I packed up my things, stole an umbrella from the front door and walked all the way to train station at 2am.

Fourteen hours later I was home.

I never talked to those NYC “friends” again. I didn’t have to. Something shifted an rearranged in my framework that night.

My work friend I called that evening would never mention our conversation. We didn’t have to. Two years later he would die of cancer. And I would paint a metronome for him because after all he was a musician.

I miss him still today.

But I can also stack moments upon moments like this and I love it. Rare shavings of fragmented self across the earths terrain. Moments I have had the utter private privilege of exchanging with friends, and strangers, along the way.

Back to Chartres:

I was drenched when I got back to my hotel. I peeled my clothes off, grateful I had the moment. That I saw the images flashing outside and wasn’t afraid of alien invasions. That I took the PJ’s off and opted for uncertainty in the middle of the night. Admittedly not the first time and def not the last.

On my final day in Chartres, I wandered back to the cathedral, searching for the labyrinth I’d heard about. It felt poetic. My trip had begun at a castle with a labyrinth and now, here at its end, I found another. I spent my last hours in Chartres walking its meditative path, reflecting on how life has a way of coming full circle.

And then it was time to leave—back to Paris for two nights before heading home to Pittsburgh. The thought of returning filled me with a strange mix of dread and gratitude. This journey had changed me, but now it was time to see what those changes would mean back in the life I’d left behind. But not before I had one last adventure…