Oh. My. GOD. I ate. A bowl. Of Blood! That Morcilla de Leon I had a few days ago? That was blood people, BLOOD! Roberto told me last night. It explains everything about the dish, the blackish brown color, the hummusy texture, the smokey taste. Blood. I ate a bowl of blood. Oh yes I did. Gross.
And there were a couple of scrawny German dudes in the albergue last night who liked to scoot around in their skimpy skivies with their junk hanging down. It would have been fine if they´d looked like George Clooney, but they didn´t. Gross. I mean I have the sense to cover up since I am closer in physique to Roseanne Barr these days than Cate Blanchette (I will never be Cate Blanchette though, dammit). I mean, consideration people!
So I left the albergue early this morning in a hurry to escape the dangling German nut parade and almost immediately I missed Roberto and Elainie. I wished I had popped my head in their private room to at least say goodbye. And I thought about them all day, hoping they would make it to Ponferrada and maybe I could have dinner with them.
I have worn a cloak of loneliness these last few days. I have never read a description of loneliness that so perfectly captures the sensation like Liz Gilbert´s eloquent lines. If I had her book with me I would quote her, but she describes loneliness as following her home and climbing into bed with her, with his boots still on. Damn.
So I want Roberto and Elainie back to keep me company. I am not finished with them. And especially now because my plan from yesterday, my plan to ¨set down¨ the ruminations and mullings over my ex-it at the Cruz de Ferro, didn´t work. My symbolic unburdening just didn´t take. I know it didn't take because my mind took its usual position at the starting line of the mental marathon of divorce races again today.
When I moved into my new condo my girlfriends had a little Wiccan cleansing for me. And before you go get all freaked out, no they are not Wiccans, they are harmless cute little atheists, and Wicca isn´t devil worship anyway, it´s nature worship, and as far as I´m concerned nature is just one of the many faces of God, so no biggie. So anyway, we burned sage, we invited good into our lives, we banished the bad, and all was healing and cathartic and welcoming for my new home, until the end. We did this visualization where we needed to picture the person we were ¨sending away¨ (my ex, obviously), and utter some words of generous dismissal, and then imagine this person walking off into the unknown, away from us. And I felt this fierce refusal from my gut to let go, and a chorus of ¨I´m not ready! I´m not ready¨ resounded in my ears, and I began to cry so that I thought I might not be able to stop. It was too soon for me.
And again, when I stopped a few weeks ago in the little church in Eunate, I tried to deposit more than just some hopes for the future. I remembered Liz Gilbert on the top of the ashram in India, creating a place and a space to finally send all of her thoughts and feelings about her ex husband. Not that she would never think of him or be angry again, but that now she would have someplace to ¨send¨ these reflections so they would no longer trouble and consume her waking hours and her present moments. So I sat in that nearly millennium old church and cried and tried to carve out a harbor for my thoughts, and vowed that when the engine of anger started to rev again I would send those feelings to Eunate. But it didn´t really work. Each day as I walked, the engine lept into gear and propelled my mind as I propelled my feet. And I found I could not send them to Eunate. It was too soon for me.
And again, at the Cruz de Ferro I could not lay my burden down on the pile of rocks that years of pilgrims have mounded at the base of that cross. I tried to add my ¨rock,¨ but it turns out I am still carrying it.
I don´t know. Maybe I am trying to force a process of healing that needs to happen naturally, in its own time. I remember my first shrink (the first of many), when I went to him for depression medication and the first question I asked was, ¨how long before I can get off them?¨ He looked at me and said, ¨You remind me of someone who has broken their arm and wants to take the cast off a week later. You need time to heal.¨ So a broken arm takes time to heal, and so does depression, and apparently so does a broken heart.
And even though I left him, my ex, my heart was broken. Because I did try to love him, and because I realize that I don´t think he ever really loved me, and because by the end we were such scathing enemies and I never wanted to believe that could possibly happen to us, that we could possibly hate each other that much.
So as of March 13, the ink on the judge´s signature has only been dry three months, and I realize this is still a wound that is weeping and red. And I think perhaps what I need to do is to just stop obsessing about the fact that I am still obsessing. To just let the flame burn out on it´s own when all it´s fuel is burned up and finally, one day, I will discover with delight I am simply bored with dwelling on the whole mess. I am sure a more disciplined person would say, ¨If you don´t like your thoughts, just change them; make the choice.¨ But I have tried to ¨make a choice,¨ and that choice does not seem to be choosing me.
Which is why I am now thinking that this Camino, with its multitude of beauties and rigors and discomforts, is such a good undertaking for me right now. I think you have to sweat out the toxins sometimes, and be patient while you do that. And it is taking me a while to learn the lesson of patience on this Way. At least four times now (including today in Ponferrada) in the afternoons when I hobble into the albergues I am in such a hurry to take out my wallet and pay or find my pilgrim credential and get it stamped that I drop things or knock things over and the hospitalero has had to say, ¨tranquilo, tranquilo!¨ ¨Calm down, you are here now, rest, have some hot tea, there is no need to hurry.¨
So I did slow down and drink the hot tea the hospitalero gave me, and then had a shower and a nap. But in the evening I did not see Roberto and Elainie in the albergue, and so went to dinner alone. I felt sad to be alone at first, but my spirits were lifted when I was introduced to the most astounding Tarte de Queso in the world. Tarte de Queso is cheese cake, but it is not like any cheese cake at home. There is no congealed Philly cream cheese in this divine invention. It is like someone took the fabulous, tangy cheese right from this region and poof! turned it into a cheese torte.
After my revelation of a dessert I meandered around the imposing and dramatically lit Castillo de los Templarios, yes the castle of the Knights Templar, before wandering back to the albergue.
And guess who I saw sitting at the computer checking her e-mail? None other than Elainie. She saw me and I saw her and we exclaimed and kissed on each cheek and made plans to have breakfast together tomorrow. And secure in the knowledge that I had my friends back for another day at least, I went to bed.
2 comments:
You are on the right track, girl! All that will go from you in time. Take solace in the fact that you still hvae it with you now because you NEED it. Remeber when you were at the worst part of the separation, and you couldn't decide about divorce? Many of us said to you, don't stress. The decision will come clear eventually. And if you let it come on its own, you will always be sure of it. And that was true! Same with this--if you let it run its course naturally, then it won't need to rear its ugly head years from now.
dude, i TOLD you that was blood! YIKES!!! one of my columbian students told me-- you are indeed muy fuerte-- even if you didn't know!!
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