I woke up early and was ready to leave by 7 A.M. It was to be a long day and I had been told there was a long, steep climb ahead of me, once again, with few rest stops along the way. So I packed three PowerBars in Pilgrim for added fuel, even though I was now down to only 12 bars. I didn’t know what was going on with my feet, but unless I wrapped medical tape around my arches, I couldn’t even take a step anymore, as they were on fire with pain. I was only halfway to Santiago, so I hoped the tape and my feet would last. Once I got going, the pain subsided somewhat, but if I stopped for even a few minutes, my feet went into flames of pain all over again. “Penance,” I told myself. “This is penance for all my past sins. I am being forgiven bit by bit as I walk, but I clearly have to earn it.”
Gumby looked at me from the nightstand, as if to ask if he could ride up front on Pilgrim today. I looked at him and said, “No problem. You’re in.” He made me smile. He made others smile, too, when they saw him. He was definitely earning his passage. He was a good little totem, and I was glad I’d brought him along for company.
Stuffing the rest of my belongings into Cheater, I headed downstairs for breakfast. When I got there, I met a young woman from Canada named Rita who was suffering with the same cough and congestion as Camino Patrick had. She was miserable because she wasn’t at all dressed for the weather and couldn’t seem to get warm, which is why she’d spent the money to stay in the hostel instead of the pilgrims’ albergue.
I understood how she had come to be so underdressed. Who would have thought we would have needed to layer up like we did? After all, it was nearly June and yet it was still so cold it felt like it was no later than March (in Canada). As she shared her misery with me, the waiter piped up, telling us it was the coldest spring since 1816, and all of northern Spain was just as upset over it as she was.
I couldn’t bear to see her so miserable, so I ran back upstairs, opened up Cheater, and grabbed one of my long-sleeve wool shirts, some thick wool socks, and an extra jacket I had with me, and gave them to her, hoping to bring some relief. At first she hesitated to accept them, but I insisted, so she gave in, putting everything on right away, as she was only wearing a light skirt and a thin top, a thin jacket, and sandals without socks!
Her cough sounded serious and her eyes were bloodshot, so I asked if she wouldn’t rather take a day of rest and walk tomorrow, as it looked as though she might have a fever. She shook her head and said she was meeting her boyfriend in Frómista and there was no way to contact him, so she had to go on. I shook my head. The things women do for love.
I wished her a “Buen Camino.”
I took a few more minutes to finish my breakfast and then went back to my room. I closed up Cheater, took him to the front desk, and got a stamp for my passport before I set out.
Once under way, I found the sky was clear and the sun was shining, but it was still freezing cold and windy. Ugh! Oh well, the only thing I could do was put one foot in front of the other and follow the yellow arrows.
In spite of the cold, my spirit felt calm today. The heaviness I had carried into the Camino was starting to lift a bit, and with it, I started returning to a happier state.
Holy Mother God,
Thank you for helping me clear the past.
Amen.
As I followed the Camino shells and arrows to the edge of town, I started singing, “I’m Off to See the Wizard,” making up words to match the moment, laughing at my own silliness as I did. I even managed a skip or two, although it hurt my feet.
A little way out of town, I noticed an old man who was running, rather than walking, the Camino. He had on nothing more than runner’s shorts and a tank top in spite of the brisk cold, looking as though he weighed no more than 75 pounds at most.
A Dutch couple walking near me noticed my reaction to seeing him and volunteered that he had been running on the Camino since France. They said he’d made a bargain with God when his 28-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer. He promised God that if his son lived, he would run the Camino 100 times. His son lived, so he was keeping his part of the bargain. This was his ninth time.
I had never seen such a skinny man in all my life, but I did notice that as he ran he had a huge smile on his face, as though he were in some sort of meditative bliss. The Camino does pull you into an alternative Universe filled with grace and magic if you are open to it. I’m sure that once he committed to his pilgrimage, he left planet Earth and was in another realm entirely.
Seeing him gallop along like a skinny racehorse was humbling to my aching bones. I wished him a “Buen Camino” when he passed by, but he was long gone before he could respond. Impressed as I was with him, I was fine with walking the Camino at my own slow pace. I’ve been pressured to rush ever since I was six years old and started school. Every morning was like fire drill at my house, as I rushed to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, clean up my dish, grab my book bag, find my shoes and coat, and pile into the car, fighting my brothers for who got the window seat, all in the space of 20 minutes.
And if that weren’t bad enough, when I dashed from the car and into school before the bell rang, I was met with fearsome, scowling nuns who rushed me through the rest of the day, with the threat of eternal damnation over my head if I fell behind.
The ability to go slowly was healing for me right now. Rushing around the way I often did at home didn’t allow me to acknowledge my feelings. As a result, so many had been shoved aside and archived for another time, hidden beneath my conscious awareness.
Like things thrown into the basement that are not wanted or don’t seem useful, my discarded, wounded feelings mounted until I reached a point where there was no more room to stuff them away. Now I had to clear out this old stuff in order to fully heal and grow as a soul.
As I walked, I remembered as a teenager watching a horror movie called Don’t Look in the Basement. It was quite possibly one of the bloodiest, goriest, most god-awful movies I have ever seen in my life. Laughingly, I said, “This is my real-life encounter with ‘don’t look in the basement.’” I had to look in the basement, as the ghosts of my wounded emotions were now creeping into my conscious life and were not to be denied. I had to address these ancient feelings so they could heal. I couldn’t hide them away anymore.
Maybe that is what transformation is all about. Feeling one’s feelings then allowing them to naturally move on, rather than covering them up or pushing them away. It certainly was transforming me.
My mind drifted back to the moment, and the path.
It was demanding, as usual. I first walked across a plain and then up the promised long climb. It seemed as though I would never arrive at the summit. But by the grace of God, and having no other choice but to keep going, I finally made it. As I crested the peak, I saw a local man to the side of the road sitting by a little makeshift stand, selling coffee, water, and bananas. Since there had been no cafés along the way, he was a welcome sight. I ordered a bottle of water and a banana, both for only 1 euro, then sat down and looked around. Spring was bursting forth in a bountiful array of colorful flowers as far as the eye could see.
When I finished eating my banana, I stood up again. “OUCH!”
My feet were screaming. I caught my breath and sucked up the pain before starting to move again, gently easing forward with my poles. After a few minutes I was moving along, the pain subsiding into a dull ache. The path led downhill, and as I said before, that wasn’t necessarily good news for my knee.
I started traversing the path from side to side as opposed to going straight down. The sun was getter hotter as it got closer to noon, and I starting peeling off layers of clothing, as I was now in a full sweat. I was grateful for my silly sun hat, which covered my entire face in the front, and for my sun gloves, which I picked up at the last minute before I left because someone told me you can get a sunburn on your hands when walking with poles all day long.
As I walked down, I eventually came to a village called Itero de la Vega, where I entered a 16th-century church just off the plaza. It never ceased to amaze me how beautiful these little medieval churches in the middle of nowhere were. What impressed me most was that in almost every church I entered I didn’t find the traditional “Jesus on the cross” on the altar, which I was so accustomed to seeing in other Catholic churches around the world. Instead, a statue of Mother Mary stood there, emanating a much warmer presence. I found this both surprising and a paradox, as the medieval Church was anything but loving and warm.
Once I learned to time my days so that I could enter the churches during open hours, it was becoming a big part of my daily Camino ritual to go into at least one church a day and say a rosary, which, for me, was a form of meditation. As I prayed today I noticed my heart was beginning to soften and calm down. I found my anger had subsided somewhat, giving way to a quieter energy. Perhaps after having the chance to be heard, a lifetime’s worth of rage had now run out of fury. I was walking through it and was seeing the other side.
The journey itself was long today, and because my feet were on fire it seemed endless. Yet, though long, it wasn’t difficult once over the hill, and there were parts that were so peaceful that I actually didn’t want them to end.
I especially loved walking along the canal leading into Frómista at the end of the day. It was such a calm, peaceful path, and the weather had settled into one of the first nice days since I had begun nearly two and a half weeks earlier.
As I walked, I thought about the two men I met last night at dinner in the hotel. One was a 72-year-old man named Colum, from Vancouver, and the other was named Alan, from Rhodesia. Colum had a dignified look about him, almost as though he were a retired actor of some sort. He wore a pressed white shirt, a neat ascot around his neck, and polished boots. Alan was robust, tall, muscular, and casual, wearing a T-shirt, baring his muscled arms, and leather sandals. Both were extremely friendly.
I soon learned both were Irish born. Alan was walking the Camino for the first time, and Colum was doubling back, as he had walked the last two weeks of the Camino to Santiago a few years earlier. Now he wanted to walk the part he had skipped over to complete the full journey.
I also thought about the group of women who were at the hostel last night, all of whom decided to stay at the hostel because so many people in the pilgrims’ albergue were getting sick. Everyone was coughing all night long.
One of the women I met, Charlene, had started out in Arles, France, another of the many different starting points for the Camino and had already walked almost 1,100 kilometers in a little over two months. She was having the best time of her life and after a lifetime of service to others, she was now enjoying the peace and quiet of her journey more than she could possibly explain.
I asked her if she had ever gotten lonely on the Camino, and she said, with great vehemence, “No, never! I wish I could make this last forever! I am alone. I am free.”
She made it clear that she had spent most of her life taking care of and suffering the abuses of alcoholic men, beginning with her father, then her husband, even her male boss, and on to her sons. Now, she said, she was done with all of them. This was her emancipation journey. She honestly didn’t even know if she would ever return to France once she completed the Camino.
“I have my pension now,” she said. “I don’t have to go back. I may stay and live in Spain. I am liking it very much, so far.”
She sounded as if she had just escaped from prison, and I could appreciate her sense of liberation in getting away from her miserable circumstances at home. I listened carefully, as I felt certain that this, too, was part of what I was to complete in my own soul’s journey as I made my pilgrimage to Santiago. I didn’t want to take care of any more adults who failed to take care of themselves either.
In spite of the lovely path, the last few kilometers into Frómista seriously challenged me. I had to sit down every 15 minutes because my feet were throbbing. I got out my iPod and started singing along with it in order to make it through the last three kilometers. Kundalini yoga chants had the most “oomph” to them and were the easiest to sing along to.
With that extra help I shuffled into Frómista around five o’clock and headed straight to the center of town, looking for my hostel. As the town was so small, there was no missing it, right across from the church on the main square.
As I found my way across the plaza, I noticed a group of pilgrims sitting in the warm sun having a beer, and among them was Camino Patrick!
I shuffled up and gave him a big hug and asked where he was staying. He indicated the pilgrims’ albergue, which was right next door to my hostel. He had a few beers under his belt, as did the others at his table. Up until then I had been drinking copious amounts of red wine at the end of my days, but today, in the delicious and welcome sun, a cold beer sounded fantastic.
I quickly registered for the night and got a key to my room, happy to hear that the caretaker had already taken Cheater upstairs. On the Camino you are on your own with the bag, so extra assistance like this was rare.
Then I went directly back outside, plopped myself at the table with the others, and ordered a large, cold beer. That first sip tasted so good! What a thirst quencher. No wonder everyone was drinking with such gusto.
I asked Camino Patrick how he felt today and he said “somewhat better,” but he was still coughing and fighting a chest funk that was threatening to take him out. He had also developed some sort of extreme pain running along the nerves in his legs. They felt as if they were on fire. He said it was almost impossible to sleep it was so painful and even a sheet over him was too much to bear. For just a moment, he with his legs on fire, me with my feet on fire, I wondered why we were doing this. Were we crazy?
Sitting with him were two young Americans, John and Alexia, both from Cleveland. They were friends on a post–college graduation trip across Europe, and this seemed like the most affordable way to do it. John had arrived in Frómista by bus today, as he had pulled a tendon and injured his knee two days earlier, so he was unable to walk at all. This was his second day taking the bus from town to town, and he said he might do it again tomorrow depending how much pain he was in.
Shortly after I arrived, Colum came strolling up to the table and, like me, was truly spent and ready for a beer. He checked into the hostel, while Alan went to the pilgrims’ albergue next door and joined us ten minutes later.
Pain aside, we were all in good spirits. It was an instant “Camino party.”
I sat with everyone for a while, watching beers disappear as fast as they were served. Everyone got drunk under the table, as stories flew around at an ever-increasing volume, only to be drowned out by gales of laughter.
Eventually it started cooling off a bit, so I decided to go to my room to take a hot shower and a short nap before dinner. Since the only restaurant in town was at the hostel, I agreed to meet Camino Patrick and the others in the dining room at eight. That gave me an hour and a half to rest.
I went to lie down but found I didn’t need a nap today, unlike the past two weeks when, at the end of the day, I all but passed out. I was definitely getting stronger and, apart from my crazy sore feet, I felt pretty good. I was especially grateful not to have the “Camino funk,” as the coughing, chest-cold thing was being called among the pilgrims. More than half of those staying at the pilgrims’ albergues and many of those staying in the hostels had some version of it. In fact, it was the main talk of the Camino.
I relished the hot shower in my room and the nice warm blankets on my bed that made up for the absence of heat. I also cherished my privacy. At least I wasn’t sick.
I decided to close my eyes after all, and the next thing I knew it was morning.