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.