Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Post Script

BTW, I had a grand time in Santiago! The day I returned from Muxia, as I walked back into town from the bus station, I saw Roberto and Elainie sitting in a cafe! and they were staying in my pension with Pepe and Maria! And Joe had arrived too! For the next two days I took walking tours (including the rooftop of the cathedral - wicked!), and ate dinner with our little family and went to mass.



At mass they swung the botafumeiro! It is the largest incense burner in Europe, it takes eight priests to pull the ropes and that thing skys from one end of the cathedral transept to the next at almost 70kmph, shooting practically parallel with the vaulted ceiling and smoking away as it swings. It supposedly has a religious purpose, but I think it really was traditionally used to fumigate the stinking pilgrims (we still stink today). What a sight.



And I am now home and back in the land of yellow pollen and highway traffic trying to adjust to the time and to driving and to television. I have woken up from naps a few times quite disoriented, not recognizing my home and wondering which friggin' albergue I was in. I am happy to report that my VC seems to be clearing up, but my feet are still feeling like they were pounded with a meat tenderizer. I might be headed to the podiatrist after all.



Thank you again to everyone who followed my journey and commented, sent me e-mails, or just read along for the ride.

Also, stay tuned for pictures! I will post them on this blog (embedded in the text) and also a link to the whole gallery at flickr.com soon.

There is one last thing you can do for me. If you like this blog, e-mail jan@travelgirlinc.com (Travel Girl Magazine) and tell her to read it!

Muchas Gracia y Buen Camino!

Day 41 or Finis!

Notes on Day 41, March 5, At Land's End

This morning I took my sweet and juicy clementines and pastry and climbed to the highest point on the eastern side of the peninsula and watched the sun rise on a new chapter in my life, wondering what the next road will bring.



Weeks ago I met an Italian girl, Sara, and I asked her why she was doing the Camino. ¨Lots of reasons...but, maybe some I don´t know yet,¨ she answered quietly. I don't imagine I know all the reasons I did this Camino either, and I wonder if weeks from now, when I am home and trying to find a job and paying the bills and trying to figure out what to do next, that new reasons will appear along with my new way.



Remember in The Last Crusade when Indiana Jones was trying to find the Holy Grail, and the last task he faced was to leap across a canyon. There was no apparent way across, no bridge, no rope to swing on, no place to attach his whip. And he realized he must make a leap of faith. He must believe, and completely commit to that belief, that the way would appear.



I don't know why, but sometimes in life we are called to completely leave the path we are on before we know what the new path will be, or even that there is one at all. Some might call this crazy, irresponsible, foolish. Others my call it brave. It doesn't really matter either way. The point is that sometimes, you just have to jump without seeing the bottom, because it is impossible to remain where you are. This is both crazy and brave. But the old way is untenable, and even though you have no clue what the new way is, or where it is, the hardest thing in the world is to muster the faith to believe it will appear. But I believe it always does.



We each hold the key to our own prisons.

And with that I leave you with the words of Marianne Williamson, printed in the back of my guidebook (but the guidebook author can't take all the credit, cause I knew I wanted to quote this before I saw that he had!)


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is out Light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn´t serve the world.
There´s nothing enlightened about shrinking,
So that other people won´t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.
It´s not just in some of us; it´s in everyone.
And as we let our light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.



Finis

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Day 40 or At El Mar

Notes on Day 40, March 4, Santiago to Muxia

This morning I wanted to take the 7:45 bus to Muxia on the Atlantic coast. It is traditional to go to Finisterre, which was believed in Medieval times to be the end of the earth (hence the Latin name Finisterre), and swim in the ocean, watch the sunset over the horizon, and burn some of your stinking, raggedy clothes from the Camino. Legend says that after you perform this ritual burning, you will be reborn a new person.

But several weeks ago I met a German guy who had been "living on the Camino" for a few years now, and he recommended that I go to Muxia instead if I was only going to have time for one. Muxia, he told me, was less touristy and even more beautiful, so my decision was made: Muxia it is.

But when I arrived at the bus station at 7:00am (supposedly 45 minutes early), I found out it was actually 8:00am (I was fifteen minutes late). How was this possible? Spain had had a time change last Sunday, and I knew nothing about it. And suddenly, so much was explained. The time change explained why I didn't see Peter and the gang in the square last night at 9:00 (because it was actually 10:00 when I was there), or why there was no pilgrim mass at noon when I arrived in Santiago yesterday, or why everyone in the albergues these last few days seemed to be getting up insensitively early, or why two nights ago I got locked out of the albergue at only 10:00 (it was actually 11:00) and I had to pound on the door and ring the bell for ten minutes before two people, who looked really pissed and sleepy, came to let me back inside.

So I missed my bus to Muxia, but there was another at 4:30 that afternoon, and this gave me time to walk back to town kind of re-enter it again, this time on my own. I noticed immediately the vibrant pace of this city, not too fast, not too slow. It is, without a doubt, my favorite town on the entire Camino. Santiago is friendlier than Pamplona, prettier than Logrono, more intimate than Burgos, more welcoming than Astorga, and even more romantic than Leon. I could not have imagined a better destination if I were inventing it myself.



I ran into Renate and her husband Peter, a German couple I had eaten dinner with a few nights ago, and they told me about a walking tour they were about to take so I hurried and signed up and went with them.



At lunch I ate an entire plate of traditional Galician pulpo, octopus, all by myself. Swimming in bright green olive oil and seasoned with salt, garlic and paprika, this dish is growing on me. It was lovely. I thought again of Liz Gilbert as she sat on the floor of her apartment in Rome eating fresh asparagus and reading an Italian newspaper. She could hear her ex husband's judgement and condemnation in her head. She imagined him wondering why she destroyed her marriage for some Italian vegetables and a newspaper. And again I smiled at just how many of my experiences paralleled hers. Because I too could hear my ex wondering how and why I torpedoed everything in my life to eat a plate of squidgy looking octopus tentacles and drink a glass of white wine all alone in Spain. But I smiled and I chinked my glass of wine against my water glass and toasted myself and the fact that I had the courage to take a sledge hammer to my entire life in the space of two years, from where I worked to what I did to where I lived and who I was married to for exactly this, this plate of strange and slightly scary seafood and a piece of Galician cheese cake.



And at 4:00 I returned to the bus station and took the two hour ride, stopping in every hamlet and town, to Muxia. I found a place to sleep (a little old lady accosted me and asked if I needed "habitacion", a room, and I asked her how much and she said 15 euros, so I was in.



She pointed me in the direction of El Mar, the ocean, and in no time I was clamoring over the rocky coastline. I wanted to find a spot on the rocks to watch the sunset. This coastline is all enormous rocks and boulders, no sand, no beach. It is one of these coastlines you have to climb on. I scrambled along on the rocks, looking for the right spot, my spot. I laughed when I realized that now would be a perfect time for my evil rock climbing boots, because this terrain was actually rough and I was starting to break a sweat, but I kept going, further and further along the coastline out to the tip of the peninsula.



I saw bell towers in the distance, and I realized immediately they must be Virgen de la Barca, the Virgin of the Boats, a church that Ana (Salad Oil Massage Ana) had told me I must see if I went to Muxia. So I scrambled further thinking that there had to be an easier way to get to the church than climbing over these rocks. And then I laughed at the irony of this observation, noting how I seem to like to take the hard way when someone else has already paved a path, and indeed when I got almost to the church I saw the flagstone footpath above me on the ridge.



I reached the church, it's lovely sandstone glowing in orange light from the dusky horizon. The only sadness was that there was no one to take my picture. And the great happiness was that there was no one there to take my picture. I was almost completely alone on this one kilometer stretch of coastline. Solitude. Perfect solitude.



I found my spot on a large boulder jutting out over the sea, sat down, took off my shoes, my socks, and waited for the tears to come. And of course they did. This ending was so bitter sweet and final. So poignant and imbued with significance for me. I found a small stone nearby. I held the stone in my hands and thought for a while, and then on the stone I placed my ex, and each member of his family, one by one. On the stone I put shame, embarrassment, humiliation, exposure and guilt. On the stone I put fear and apologies, insecurity and doubt. And then through watery, heavy tears I said to the stone, "You can go now, you can go now, you can go now. I need for you to go now." I stood and threw the stone as hard as I could into the sea. It bounced off a boulder and fractured, the fragments skipping across the surface of the water before they sank to the bottom.



I sat back down on my rock and blew my nose on my sock (cuz, where else was I going to go with it), and then laughed at myself for the ridiculousness of blowing my nose on my sock. And the tears ceased. I was finished crying (at least for now), and I felt the need to weep escape my body.



I sat with my chin in my hand on the rock, like Rodin's The Thinker, not thinking much of anything at all really, but watching the waves break and spray against the rocks, watching the crabs and fish and urchins scuttle about in the tide pools formed in the crevices of the boulders. I sat until the sun sank below the horizon, throwing flares of electric pinks, lightening yellows and tangerines into the sky, illuminating the azure waves in front of them.

Day 39 or Saint James, Field of Stars

Notes on Day 39, April 3, Arco do Pino to Santiago de Compostela

Here's an amusing little thought I have meditated on during the Camino: the meaning of my name. My Dad had told me years ago, and Corina confirme that my last name means a little calf in German. My first name, Kristin, is a derivation of Christ, and so means "anointed one."



I will spare you the details of my walk today; you have heard it all before. But my mood on entering the city was hard to pinpoint. At first I was glad to be walking alone. I didn't want to be with anyone else when I entered the city and saw the Cathedral. I wanted that experience to be solitary and personal. And my guidebook suggested I create an air of detachment so as not to be irritaed by the droves of tourists and school kids that might be making the one day trek into the city.



But I was so successful at creating this detachment, and so focused on my intentions of solitude, that I was actually bringing myself down. When I passed Mount Joy, so named because it is the hill that overlooks the city and gives the peregrina her first look at the Cathedral towers on her way into town, I didn´t feel joy at all, and I didn't even walk up to the monument to take in the supposedly wonderful views of the city. I was too weary and too ready to be arrived already.



I ran into a German guy, obviously a pilgrim, but without his pack, who saw me and said, "You are almost there. Only 30 minutes now and you are finished," and he walked on. This news was heartening. But then he doubled back a few minutes later and offered to show me into the city. He told me he was staying at a great little pension, literally across from the Cathedral, for only 15€ a night. He could show me this place, if I wanted, and where the pilgrim office is so I could get my Compostela (certificate of pilgrimage completion). So I said OK and Eduard, my new tour guide into Santiago, chatted merrily about how he was glad to help out and how he had been helped so many times along the Camino, how he had arrived a few days ago and had already been to the coast (Finisterre) and ritualistically burned some of his hiking clothes.



His energy, which was vibrant and positive (no doubt owing to the fact that he had already arrived and was no longer humping a 15 kilo pack) rubbed off on me, and I found my excitement growing as we entered the old quarter and I was happy not to be alone afterall. We rounded a corner and I had my first view of the Cathedral from the lonely northern portal. I felt the lump swell in my throat and the pricking feeling at the corners of my eyes. But I barely had time to take it in we were moving so fast.



We descended the steps under the Archbishop's palace where a street musician was playing a haunting tune on bagpipes (again a traditional instrument for this celtic area), and emerged out in front of the famous west facade. I had just enough time to look in wonder, even as I followed Eduard quickly and dutifully across the square, before we turned the corner again and he showed me the pension and the pilgrim office. And then he left me with instructions to come back to the pension in the afternoon when the hospitalera arrived.



So now I had the time, even though I still had my pack on and I stank and wanted to shower and just sit, to return to the church and take in this bold statement that is the Cathedral of Santiago.



I walked up the dramatic stairwell and entered the church. There are some rituals you are supposed to perform upon arriving. You are supposed to place your hand in the Tree of Jesse, the marble carving of Christ's family tree in the base of the Portal of Glory (the masterwork of Maestro Mateo begun in 1168). Eight centuries of pilgrims have worn finger holes in the marble.



You are supposed to knock your head against that of the stone efigy of Maestro Mateo, hoping that some of his genius will transfer to you in the knock. But you can't do either of these at the moment, because they have erected a barricade around the Portal of Glory and are preparing to restore it.

You are supposed to climb the altar and hug the medieval statue of Saint James and then descend beneath it to see the silver reliquary holding "his bones". These I figured I would return and do later without my pack. It was close to noon, mass would be starting. So I wandered the nave and transcepts of the church, taking its austere gray Romanesque interior, simple and bare, except for the ornate and shining gold gilt high altar and baldacin (canopy).



As I circled the interior of the Cathedral, heavy with my pack, I noticed a few confessionals open and priests occupying the booths inside and suddenly I felt this overwhelming need to confess. I have not confessed in, I don't know, decades, and I didn't even remember how to do it. But the moment I knelt in front of the priest, with his black robes and royal purple stole, the tears that I had been holding in check since my first view of the Cathedral with Eduard, began to flow freely.

He began in Spainish. I explained I don't speak Spanish. He asked me if I was German, "No, Americano. Ingles por favor." He didn't speak English, but he switched on his little light and pulled out a laminated card that said, "Suggest the following themes to the confessor." And a list of twenty or so questions followed:

"Have you kept the Sabbath holy by going to mass on Sundays and Holy Days?" (uhhhh...well see, church is pretty boring...and ummmm....well...no.)

"Have you honored your father and mother?" (You'd have to ask them, but I think so.)

"Have you commited sins of the flesh?" (uh, thank God, yes).

"Have you beared false witness by telling lies?" (I think my problem is I tell too much truth).

"Have you blasphemed or taken the Lord's name in vain?" (Well, shit, this whole blog is pretty much one long cuss).

"Have you induced abortion?" (Had to answer no to that one, but really, is that anyone's f'ing business?).

But even as he fumbled through the questions in English and I nodded or shook my head or inclined it in a "maybe" sort of answer, I still sobbed. Because these questions he was asking, and the answers I was giving, were not really what I was confessing anyway. I wasn't confessing about adultery or telling lies or cussing and not going to church. I was confessing to being human, and to being sorry for the whole clusterfuck I had made of my life simply by not honoring myself. And I think that priest knew, he must've known, that I was not confessing to any of these mundane, silly, obligatory sins mentioned on that shiny laminated card, that something else entirely had got hold of me at that moment. He was patient with me and he looked kindly on me and he extended his hands over me, and spoke softly in Spanish, and I remembered that this must be the part where he says "I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." And he told me my penance was to say two Our Fathers (Nuestros Padres) and come to church on Sunday.

"Really? That's it? Two Our Fathers and come to church on Sunday? Oh, did I get off light."

I've always thought the idea of confession was a bit lame. I always questioned a priest's power to absolve someone of their sins in God's stead and give them some silly little slap on the wrist token penance as if that made things better. But for the first time, I understood confession. You already have God's forgiveness. You always already had it. The priest is just the conduit to let you know that. And the penance really is just a token, because there is nothing you really need to do to be forgiven, except be sorry. And I was. And I already knew I was forgiven, I just wanted to hear someone else say it, and a Spanish priest in Santiago de Compostela is as good as anyone.

After my official absolution I went to my hotel (the pilgrim mass at noon apparently didn't happen today for some reason). I gratefully slid off my pack for the last time of the Camino, showered, opened the doors of my balcony to hear the noise of the busy alleyway below: the clinking of glasses at the cafes in the Rua de la Raina, the noisy chatter of locals and tourists, the languid guitar music from the musician working for coins around the corner at the Cathedral, and let these sounds lull me into the longest three hour siesta.



Later in the evening I set about exploring this pearl of a town, the old quarter near the Cathedral, and I window shopped for the cheesy souvenirs I had every intention of indulging in buying. I saw Uber German Peter sitting in an outdoor cafe with his friend and he invited me for beers with a group of people. We were to meet at 9:00 in front of the Cathedral. So at 8:40 I wandered over to the Praza d'Obradoiro and sat on the stone plaza. Somewhere nearby a street musician was playing a lyrical, lilting harp. I sat and just contemplated the glorious facade of this cathedral, now bathed in orange electric light from the square.



The facade was constructed in 1750, rather late, and basically enrobes the original 11th century Romanesque cathedral. But the facade looks much, much older. It is haunting and ornate, encrusted with a tangerine colored lichen, with weeds and flowers growing out of the crevaces between stones. I hope they never clean it.

I love the translation of Santiago de Compostela: Saint James, Field of Stars. It makes the ethereal earthly and that moment was exactly that, ethereal and earthy all at the same time.

By nine o'clock I was in such a serene and solitary mood. I didn't see Peter and his crowd in the square, which was just as well, because I felt like celebrating, but not like partying. So I took myself to Rua de la Raina and picked a restaurant with all the lobsters and crabs and octopuses and cuts of meat displayed in the window, went in and ordered sopa de marisco and scallops (because scallop shells are the symbol of Saint James and the Camino don't ya know) which were swimming in green oil with carmely brown onions and pink Iberican ham. I drank white wine and congratulated myself on making it to Santiago, on walking 798 kilometers or 496 miles.

Well done, Anointed Little Calf.

The Legend of Santiago

St. James was one of Jesus´homies, one of the original 12. And after Pontious Pilot had Jesus exectuted (you all know the story of that hot mess), James supposedly sailed to Galicia to spread the juice.

But pagan Galicia was not having much of this Christian hoodoo, and James returned to Jerusalem, where in 42 C.E. Herod had him beheaded.

And now it gets a little wierd. Because somehow, in a ship with no captain, James´ body sailed back to Galicia, where it mysteriously disappeared for the next seven and a half centuries.

And in 813 C.E. a shepherd in Galicia saw stars falling on a field in Galicia, where he discovered a tomb. And inside it, the relics of the Saint.

And a church was built on that spot, and for centuries after, pilgrims have come from the world over to pay homage to what legend says are the saint´s remains (they don´t actually know for sure as no testing has been done, so we could all be haplessly flocking to pay homage to cow bones for all we know). But anyway, this legend has power and this power has drawn people, people like me, like a magnet....

to Saint James, Field of Stars.

Informational Update - Drum Roll Please

Tomorrow. Santiago.

Day 38 or Animo! Animo!

Notes on Day 38, April 2, Arzua to Arca

I smile when I see the graffiti of hundreds saying ¨Animo! Animo!¨ the closer I get to the end. All during the trail I have loved the fact that semi truck drivers and farmers in tractors and drivers in cars will honk at you and wave you on. Tomorrow is the final push and I savor the encouragement.

On the trail today there was a simple stone memorial to Guillermo Watts, a pilgrim who died right there, one day away from Santiago, in the early 1990´s. Pilgrims had placed rocks on the memorial (this is the token symbol of pilgrim respect). But someone had placed an old straw hat there too, and another person a bandaid. Which made me laugh and get a little lump in my throat at the same time.



As I get closer to Santiago, I am conscious of the fact that I have taken over 900 pictures, and this is after I have deleted the shitte ones every day. I realize my friends and family love me, but they might just mutiny if I make them stare at 20 pictures of the same Romanesque cloister, first in color, then in the muy artistico sepia.

Peace is descending on me now. Today there were melancholy moments when I recalled glimpses of this experience that made me think I never want to leave. Like when I sit alone in an old stone farmhouse, nursing a glass of wine and reading my guidebook, or when I notice the spring flowers blooming like pink and white candies dotting the forest floor, like when I am standing alone in front of a 13th century church portal, the creative power of ancient masters whispering to me through the carved stone.



But then I remember home and I think am ready to go there. I am missing my cozy bed, and reliable heat, and regular hot water and predictable toilet seats. I am looking forward to vegetables, and a laxative. I am looking forward to my own shower (at least if my shower is dirty and mildewy, I know it is my own dirt and mildew I am showering in). I am looking forward to pizza, and my friends, and my nieces. I am looking forward to rebuilding my life, stone by stone, carving in each the newly acquired wisdom of a painful past and the verdant hopes and dreams of a wide open future, but with the sincerest intent to live life in the now.

I am ready.

Day 37 or The Calm Before

Notes on Day 37, April 1, Palas de Rei to Arzua

Last night, after another carb 'n' carcass bomb of a dinner at a restaurant with Chris and Christina, I returned to my municipal albergue where the dragon lady of a hospitalera would not give us any blankets (even though there were some), and where she would not open the other dorm room for those of us who don´t snore to be able to sleep in peace. Not at all in the Camino spirit if you ask me, so after bitching about her with a couple of other peregrinos, I left her a bit of a nasty note (I called her "La Diabla"), which was also decidedly not in the Camino Spirit.

But I slept tolerably, even without the blanket and with the snoring. Good God, without earplugs on the Camino I would be toast. I remember the first question Liam asked me when he met me. He eyed me with caution and said, "do you snore?" and he told me the story of a guy whose snore was so incomprehensibly over the top that Liam ¨thought the guy was taking the piss.¨ And each night Liam would make a loud noise with his fingers and lips (it sounded like a kazoo) to try and startle the snorers in their sleep, and each morning he would narrow his eyes at the offenders and say ¨there, that one right there, she´s the culprit.¨



This morning, like yesterday, another guy turned on the lights at 6:00 am. It seems like the closer we get to Santiago, the faster people want to get there, so the earlier they are getting up.

I marvel at how keenly sensitive you are on the trail to every slight, piddling discomfort. Each ounce of unevenly distributed weight in your pack, each teensy grain of gravel in your shoe, the niggling chafing of a buckle. But you don´t stop to fix it because getting started again is so hard.

My guidebook looks like it has been through a war zone. It has been rained on, spilled on, sweated on, dropped in water, in mud, in pooey mud and dried out by a fire. It has been stuffed in my belt, stuffed in my pack, stuffed in my pockets and taped back together. It bears silent witness to all I have experienced and born on this trail.



Today I had so much company in the way. Chickens, sheep, goats, singing birds. I am slowing down as I get closer to Santiago, not speeding up. I lingered over horses this morning. For ten minutes I stood transfixed by the sound of cows, their large heads just feet from me, munching the grass. I was hypnotized by the noise the grass made as the cows tore it and chewed, their large maws grinding rhythmically side to side, their big wet noses glistening in the sun. I have grown quite fond of these large lumbering lugs.



The farm dogs, who seem to love their lives with an abandon I wish I could embody, trot out to greet you cheerily at times, at other times they rush out to tell you to stay the hell away from their sheep. Either way they perform their duties with relish. And today a snake crossed my path and I watched in a trance as it slithered slowly away. And for one fleeting moment I saw a deer up ahead, petite and gray with large ears and an enormous white tail like a bunny´s.

I stopped in Melide for lunch and to blog. I figured it would take me another two and a half hours to get to the Albergue in Arzua, but I was meandering so slowly, so lost in peaceful thought, that three hours later I looked up with no idea where I was. I had not been looking at my guidebook at all (I used to be so diligent about doing my homework before a day´s trek, now I just go, trusting there will be a bright yellow arrow to guide me when I need it). I thought I might have overshot Arzua, which is a problem because there was no other albergue for another 18km. So I had to walk 300 meters to the main road just to find out I was still another 5km from Arzua. Am I slowing down to prolong the experience? I do not know. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am just tired. Perhaps I am just needing to be quiet.

Day 36 or The Kiwi Brigade

Notes on Day 36, March 31, Portomarin to Palas de Rei

Last night in the albergue some dude ripped an enormous fart in the middle of the night and two guys next to me could not, or would not stop laughing (ok, well, I was laughing too). And this morning I understood why. I was swarmed by teenagers as I left albergue. It must be some kind of school field trip. How cute. But they blathered on loudly, with their noisy cell phones chiming pop music tunes, and their text messages going ting ting...ting ting. And since I have now become a Camino purist I am loath to have to tolerate the aural pollution of this giggling, gossiping, gaggle of chirdren. And I played leap frog with groups of them all day as they weaved in and out of the same bars where I sought refuge. My my my. I have become old and crotchety, haven´t I?

I stopped to wait out a bubble of kids on the trail and met a new couple doing the same. Chris and Christina from Australia and New Zealand respectively. So as we waited for the teens to straggle past we started talking. Chris works for a carpet retailer that sells carpet directly to the likes of Russel Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman. He promised me that if I came to Sydney, he would show me Russel´s house, or at least his carpet.



I am amazed how deep our conversation ran and how quickly. Chris is a victim of childhood sexual abuse, former alcoholic, ex military, ex husband, reformed bad parent turned prison Kairos ministry volunteer who has found ¨freedom¨ in a little Catholic church run by Jesuits in Sydney. His wife, Christine, is also a former divorcee who has her own impressive resume of life difficulties. I am amazed what survivors people are, what troopers, what warriors we can be when we need to be.

Chris merely said, ¨So now tell us about your divorce,¨ and the floodgates opened, and they got all the dirty details and the salacious bits and the scandalous ones too. I couldn´t believe the ease and rapidity with which it all came tumbling out, but Chris said, ¨Hey, if you can´t talk here, where can you talk.¨

But I hadn´t even mentioned my days of obsessive ruminating and brooding on the Camino, when Christina said, ¨you have to go through a period of obsessing¨ to get to the point where bitterness won´t consume you. And I thought, yeah, I have to go through this right now, but the operative word here is through. I must go through it in order to not get stuck in it. And slowly I have been easing up on the gas and giving myself permission to just drive on this road for a while, because I know I will leave it behind, and therefore there is no reason to fear being waylayed here for forever.

In the afternoon I said goodbye to Chris and Christina and I took a guidebook recommended 2km detour to Villar de Donas. The church of San Salvador is all that remains of a 14th century monastery here with enticing frescoes. I suspected it might be closed, and so managed my expectations as best I could. When I got there, it looked completely deserted, but I stepped up to the iron gate of the churchyard and pushed. It gave way. People, if there is an open door or gate, I will walk through it, whether or not I am supposed to. Curiosity might not get me killed, but it might get me arrested for trespassing.



The church itself was closed, but the carved Romanesque portal was enough. I sat in front of this centuries old door and just regarded it. The opening a series of carved stone columns topped by pointed arches, each different in motif and descending in size until they reached the red wood door with it´s elegantly swirled decorative iron hinges.



I stretched out on the steps of the churchyard, which was strewn with white rice and lentils and pink and red rose petals, evidence of a recent wedding in this timeless place, and ate a picnic and still regarded the door. I did get a peek at the frescoes inside. There was an inviting chink in the red wood and I peered through. The slice of interior I saw was haunting and peaceful, but I was happy with just this door.



When I regained the trail I saw a couple of German guys travelling on horseback to Santiago in full period pilgrim costume. I had seen these dudes a couple of days ago in Sarria. At first I was a bit relieved that they have Ren Fair Geeks in Europe too, and that that particular travesty of identity crisis is not just an American phenomenon. But one of these guys explained to me that he was wearing replicated Norman garb from the year 1066. He told me that he and his horse had been at the reenactment of the battle of Hastings in England 2 years ago. 1,000 men and horses recreated the scene at Senlac Hill, and I immediately admired him and his spotted stallion and his heavy wool garb, nerd though he was. How bitch ass cool it would have been to have seen that, eh?



Today, today people, I crossed the 100km mark. I am less than 100km from Santiago. Praise Enselmo!



In the afternoon I had the trail pretty much to myself. The detour to Villar de Donas seemed to have cleared out the teeny boppers. I was trekking along in quiet contemplation when BAM! I stopped dead. Ahead of me was a 17th century wayside stone cross, the Cruceiro de Lameiros. There are many along the Camino, but now I was hit with deja´vu so overpowering it smacked me in the face. Its not that I thought ¨I´ve seen this before.¨ It´s that I thought, ¨I´ve been here before.¨ The sensation was so bold, so undeniable. And I thought of Liz Gilbert again as I realized: I was never not coming here. I was always going to come here.



And if that is true, then it also means that I was always going to divorce my husband, and I was always going to go through everything, the good and bad, that I have slogged through these past two years. Which then means that everything you experience in the universe, the good and the bad, is exactly as it should be. The grains of sand are needed to make the pearl.

Day 35 or Muchas Gracias, Mis Amigos, Mi Corazon

Notes on Day 35, March 30, Sarria to Portomarin

Today I said goodbye to Elaine and Roberto. Roberto is sick and they are staying in Sarria for the day. I will miss them, my new friends.

Today I woke, dressed, brushed my teeth, packed, ate, left, walked. Then walked more. I think I walked some after that. I think after that I stopped at a bar. Then I might have walked some. I kept walking. I have been walking. I am still walking.



As I walk I am thinking of all my friends. My piles of friends who have stayed with me and stuck with me, who have been there for my divorce and are now swimming like little fishes along with me on this camino, cheering me on with e-mails and posts. They are like my support crew in the van on the Tour de France, you know?



I am thinking of my friend Sandy in Cincinnati, who I am so happy I truly reconnected with when I separated from my ex, and who had sort of weirdly predicted that one day I might leave my ex and offered words of encouragement and reminded me how I had been the one to encourage her when we were young. I am thinking of my friend Andrea in Florida, who I´ve known since I was practically born and who, when she moved away in fourth grade, I cried over like I´d lost my foot. She has let me know through countless e-mails and blog comments that she is here for me, and like a dork I have not called her yet, but it means so much to keep hearing her persist in being there for me, waiting patiently for me to call, which I know I will (I promise).



I am thinking of my gurlz (you know who you are), the boys (you know who you are), W&J who helped me move furniture during my divorce (always the shit job you do for friends). I am thinking of my school friends, who have hung tight (Sam, MK, Rachel and the rest, who I will see again in summer when they are recovering from their first year of teaching. And I am thinking of Travis, my former lover and friend, who made me feel completely beautiful when I looked like a God-damned train wreck and made me laugh at a time when I would've been crying otherwise.

And I am thinking of my entire family who have lent a hand, a prayer, or mountains more for me.



And there are many more friends of mine out there, you know who you are, who have been in my life and have known of my hurt. And I dedicate this day of walking, so close now to my destination, to you. My friends. I am misting up a little as I type, and I think of you all and I remember the words of Clarence the Angel from It´s a Wonderful Life:

¨Remember George, no man is a failure who has friends.¨

I am a rich woman indeed.

Thank you all.

I love you all.

Day 34 or My Shepherd´s Dilemma

Notes on Day 34, March 29, Triacastela to Sarria

Yesterday in Triacastela I pulled off a clandestine albergue switch. I had paid my 3€ for the municipal albergue, but it was dirty... and wet, and I was feeling picky and restless, and I quietly ducked out of albergue and abandoned Joe and Roberto and Elainie for the comfort of a cozy private albergue in a converted old stone house with heat and a private shower and extra blankets.

Roberto had told us how a priest in Madrid said a blessing for him and Elainie at a mass they attended before their Camino, and he advised them to remember to ¨be humble.¨ But I was not feeling humble or meekly grateful yesterday, and the closer I get to Santiago, the more I want in the way of comforts again. In the beginning I thought ¨you want me to sleep on dirt? Ok! great! dirt is quaint!¨ Now I walk into the albergue and immediately ask if there is heat, hot water, blankets and internet. My humility is evaporating like my money.



Last night I said goodbye to Maria and Pepe because they were taking another route to Sarria and I did not expect to see them again. But that sadness aside, the weather cleared today (natch), and I had the trail to myself this morning past lovely low dry stacked stone walls that crisscross the fields and pastures.



I stopped for lunch and sat on just such a stone wall that bordered a small pasture with about nine gray-white sheep and three fluffy spring lambs. They stood munching the grass and I munched my left over walnuts from Enselmo, which I ate with some dark chocolate I had bought. Mmmm, crazy good.



And one of the sheep wandered over to me and gobbled the orange peel I dropped at my feet. I was happy to have fed him what was probably a rare treat. And then the sheep dog ambled over and I tossed him the rest of my ham. And we picnicked together for a while before I noticed the shepherd sleeping in the sun in the far corner of the field. And such a swell of peace and wonder at this bucolic, simple, contented life filled me.



In the afternoon I walked through low canyons of moss and fern where sunlight dappled the trail. The way weaved through grey stone hamlets, the towns forming like pearls on a string along the path. Yesterday Joe had observed that ¨I´ve never seen so many derelict buildings in my life,¨ and I hadn´t wanted to say it, but he is right. The poverty here seems to be pretty deep. The Camino is the only
thing running through some of these villages, and the abandonment is the by-product of the younger generations fleeing to the cities looking for work. More often than not it is the old women, clad in skirts and aprons or smocks and golashes, that I greet while they are herding the cattle down the road in front of me or tending the cabbage patch by the trail.



And then the thing I have been fearing this entire trip finally happened. The dreaded bathroom emergency. And, well, remember Adrian? Yeah. Well, let´s just say I fertilized someone´s field today. Nuff said.

I got my 20k done in about 4.5 hours today. I was not trying to go fast, but I still had some of Elainie´s algae in my bottle and that shit really does work and I am determined to find some when I get home. It is probably illegal, but I don´t give a rat's ass. It turned me into Speedy Gonzalez for three days!



So I arrived in Sarria and had time for a nap and a trip to the store and when I was heading to my albergue I saw Elainie and Roberto climbing the main street into the old section of Sarria. And Joe was there and Maria and Pepe had come after all!



We hit the town for dinner at an expensive restaurant way too nice for the way we all smelled. Joe and I rhapsodized on our body funk during the walk to the restaurant. He complained about two French people (of course they were French, Brits hate the French), and said ¨I must´ve got caught in a bad slipstream or something because I started retching.¨ I´m surprised he hasn´t fainted yet from my body funk. I am about to. Jesus.



Dinner was by far the snazziest and richest (I mean flavor-wise, but price-wise too) food I´ve had the entire trip. I ate a gorgeous buttery sopa de marisco (seafood soup), and pimentos de Gallego (roasted red peppers with garlic and salt and drizzled with the brightest, greenest, fruitiest olive oil you can imagine), and a fat steak smothered in a queso sauce that is making me fat just to think about.

At dinner I mentioned my lunch on my stone wall with my shepherd far afield, and Roberto said ¨We talked to that shepherd!¨ And what I heard then broke my heart. No one wants to buy his wool anymore, so he just burns it and sells the fluffy, fuzzy white lambs to butchers for meat. And all at once my naive, romantic image of that bucolic, contented, simple shepherd´s life dissolved in a wave of guilt for not being a vegetarian and for wearing machine stitched clothes made by Chinese children.

Patrol Night 2 or I Have Turtle Blood on My Hands

June 22, 2010 Tonight I am on the beach writing by the gibbous moonlight. The Atlantic is beating a persistent time, the stars sparkle, the ...