Updated by: July 10, 2026
The Green Line
There is a green line painted through Saintes, and this morning I stood my shoe on it and followed it out of town. 137 kilometers to Bordeaux, on the old pilgrim road. Day one.
By mid-afternoon my feet had opinions. Twenty-five kilometers in July heat, through fields and vineyards, a pack on my back. Somewhere past Saint-Léger, where I’d stopped at the fountain to fill my bottle, I stopped thinking about the road and started thinking about my knees.
My mother had hers rebuilt three months ago. Three months of learning to walk again, and she’s nearly there. Every walk she takes is a little longer than the last.
My father’s knees are going the same way. He played sport his whole life and now he walks with a small limp. All those decades of running and squash, paid for in cartilage. I don’t think he would take it back.
So, I walked, and the soreness stopped feeling like a complaint. Tired legs are legs that got to do their thing. My mother would take this soreness in a heartbeat. She’s working her way back to it, on her own green line, a little longer every day.
Tomorrow I’ll wake up stiff and walk 25 kilometers again. Because I can. Somewhere behind me, my mother is walking her own green line.
Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder
