A Decade On: Trudging to Santiago de Compostela

 

"Tell your story: Yes, tell your story.  Show your example. Tell everyone it's possible,
and others shall feel the courage, to climb their own mountains." ~ Paulo Coelho) 

I do not by any stretch of the imagination claim that I am in the same league, or at the same table with Paulo Coelho EXCEPT, that we have both set our feet on the same well-worn, blessed path trudging across Spain toward Santiago de Compostela. For that, we will always be bonded together as peregrinos, pilgrims on The Way.

While Coelho made his pilgrimage in 1986 which he later wrote about in The Pilgrimage (1987) I set out in June of 2013 near my birthday. I was 63, had not prepared beyond a few days of walking with my overloaded backpack in the hilly area were I was living at the time. I had a good pair of handed down hiking boots and researched good socks and what I might need. I nixed the strong suggestion of ear plugs (wrong!) and walking sticks although veteran pilgrims shook their heads at my ignorance and then bestowed one of theirs on me. 

What moved me to do this is one of those 'where did that idea come from?' moments in my life. I'm not sure but on January 1st, 2013, the idea drilled itself into me like the sound of a mosquito inside a dark, tent. The relentless nagging from Spirit, or Divine Guidance or my long-dead mother who also had happy feet, would not be silenced until I agreed to go. That summer. Six months away. As I have often been gifted these sudden urges to travel for no particulate reason, I knew better than to question the source. Or refuse the invitation.

I flew to Marseille in early June, to rest up a bit and board a train on my birthday for the border with Spain where I would officially set off. Now, I do love the French (and their food) but they can call a railroad strike at the drop of an unkind word so as the days passed, I sought out another way to Irun on the border with France. After many hours on a bus, I was very unceremoniously dropped at the train station in Irun around 5am. Station is closed, I'm shooed off the benches in front of the station by police where I attempted to sleep. I wandered just a few feet away to the bench in a churchyard next to the station, and, using my backpack as a pillow, waited for the 6am opening to grab something to eat and a cup of coffee to begin the search for an albuerque, one of the hostels or other establishments set up just for those walking the Camino.

In retrospect, I see this delay as preparation for the long road ahead: being ready to improvise and deal with what showed up, letting expectations drop-about time, distance, available comforts-letting trust not expectation be my constant companion. 

I treasure the photo above from my second day on the Norte, the north road of the Camino, taken by a stranger, another pilgrim who flashed the universal hand sign for 'let me take your picture' at just the right moment when I stopped to take in the view of the Atlantic. I intentionally left my cell phone behind in the States but kept my camera at the ready the entire trip. I rarely passed anyone who didn't speak with reverence if not joy as they shared some unexpected comfort or small kindness from their day--passing a corner burdened with wild flowers, cold water offered for blistered feet at a small village fountain, having the last bed space in an over-croweded albuerque, a cup of fresh, free hot coffee offered from the tiny restaurant on a rainy morning. Simple needs, simple pleasures. As pilgrims, we chose to give up everything we could not carry on our backs just to put one foot in front of the other for weeks and by doing this,  realized the richness of our lives was not what we had but what we did not need.

“I have come to believe that we do not walk alone in this life. There are others, fellow sojourners, whose journeys are interwoven with ours in seemingly random patterns, yet, in the end, have been carefully placed to reveal a remarkable tapestry." ~ Richard Paul Evans

How did I walk over 350 miles or more for six weeks? One footfall after the other. Learning to trudge. I now know exactly what that word means. Trudging is how I got across Spain.  A trudge is a pace that is not quite walking speed and not quite stopping speed. A trudge is almost metronomic, rhythmic, like breathing. Balancing a backpack makes it easier to trudge. Trudging is how we become closer to the earth. Like turtles. Slow, sure, steady. Timeless.

 Trudging is a meditation. It slows us but does not impede our life. We can make progress but without chaos or losing our ability to see, be present in the moment. In fact, trudging IS living in the moment. I don’t trudge anymore since I’ve left the Camino. I would, but I feel self-conscious. Unless I’m alone on a hike or walking down a very deserted road up to my house. I never felt self-conscious on the Camino but I had the perfect reason to be slowly lifting one foot and then the other: the backpack with the large shell hanging on the back that entitled me to walk any old way I wanted as long as my destination was always westward, toward a point on this globe already christened through the centuries by other humans as confused by the world and life as I was.  Trudging united me with millions of feet that had worn down paths through the woods, slept in monasteries and open fields, climbed high peaks and left soft prints on sandy beaches. Our trudging feet blessed the Earth with each step, each slow moment we created, acclimating to a collective sacred daily ritual. Santiago de Compostela could be Mt. Kilimanjaro or Lake Titicaca. Any destination that gives trudging a purpose is sacred. But in reality, the trudging IS the purpose. 

My Camino was constant change cocooned within constant motion, a world where generosity was the common currency, laughter the exchange rate, and everyone had the same amount to spend. As I linger over photos from that walk a decade ago, sitting here in my small house in southern Illinois that I love surrounded by woods and a few wild things from time to time, I start to wonder if I could do this again. My right knee certainly didn't like the mountainous Norte and my right ankle later suffered a stress fracture on the French Way in July as if to say "I told you it was too hot down here." But I would not give up any of the aches and soreness that I still carry. My body holds all these as memories, memories of ancient ruins I investigated, acres of sunflowers that appeared to nod as I passed, broad vistas shared with others trudging beside me, simple food shared communally, the daily blessings of 'buen camino!' poured over us from locals as we passed, of strangers who became instant family as we walked side by side for a few days or even just a few hours. 

Yeah, I'd do it again. There is still hopefully more trudging left in me. Only this time I'd definitely bring along ear plugs and a pair of my very own walking sticks.

I need solitude. I need space. I need air. I need the empty fields round me; and my legs pounding along roads; and sleep; and animal existence.—Virginia Woolf