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.