One Foot in Front of the Other
walking to Saint James
Birdsong from scrub that burns with blossoms; someone’s dirty old mop sleeping in the middle of the path that turns out to be a funny little dog; a kiss, a hug from an old lady who offers a candy, a cookie, a “que valiente, que forte, que guapa” for a tired little pilgrim; a fellow traveller who in real life is a masseuse who gives you a desperately needed shoulder massage halfway through your 25 km day; a rock sitting in the middle of the meseda, the “desert” of the Camino, with a hand painted message COFFEE 4 KMS ->; a cool river for aching feet, and always, always, the sweet breeze from the west just when you’re ready to give up - some of the gifts, the immediate gifts of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. The bigger gifts come later. Sometimes, much later.
Make no mistake, though some guidebooks describe the Camino as a “gentle 900 km meander through the north of Spain”, and the Camino never threw at us anything more difficult than the equivalent of a really long hike in the Borders, or maybe one of the “lesser” (and I use the word lesser cautiously) Munros, or an average day hike in the Rocky Mountains, it is an arduous journey that takes or teaches tremendous inner strength. Endurance, focus, self-discipline, fortitude, the ability to withstand pain, as is the ability to endure or ignore the more unappealing behaviours of fellow pilgrims, are the ingredients of each day as one forces oneself to rise from an often uncomfortable or sleepless bed, eat whatever one can find, shoulder a heavy pack and head out once again, with a tired, sore body not knowing sometimes where the next meal is never mind the next bed. This is the Camino that ultimately eludes many – someone told me that less than 50% of those that start, finish the Camino, and judging by what we saw in our early weeks, that may hold true. Bad feet, bad knees, bad attitudes felled people left, right and centre. Sometimes one simply has bad luck – a very fit Danish woman had to quit after 400 kms because an ant bit her, and she got a crippling infection in her foot.
Sometimes now I look at photos I took at the 628 km mark, or maybe the 567 km mark, or even the 225 km mark, and marvel at us. Why didn’t we stop? Wasn’t 300 kms enough? And then I look at the photo I took of a hand painted rock that sat at the side of the Camino, a simple message in German written on it, “Santiago ich komme”, a little blue clad pilgrim in the background of the photo, walking walking walking towards Santiago de Compostela, and my throat tightens, my tears form. Of course, it’s simple -we walked this ancient route for Saint James to feed some longing in our hearts and we walked for her, our child, for whom we promised God we would make this pilgrimage ten years ago. After ten years we fulfilled this promise of thanksgiving.
But there are as many reasons to walk the Camino of Santiago de Compostela, as there are pilgrims. Some look for direction. Some are running away. Some are celebrating completion of something – a university degree, high school, maybe twenty-five years of marriage. Some are mourning the loss of a loved one, a marriage, a way of living. Some want to change something in their lives. Some are recovering from something – we saw heart surgery scars, a brain tumour scar, we met the depressed, all carrying badges of a different kind of courage alongside their scallop shells.
Some pilgrims are giving themselves a mental and physical challenge. Some are looking for God. An ex-military man, an American, was hiking for Sister Scholastica, his fifth grade teacher who told him he’d amount to nothing. Some are looking for love (and we saw lots of that). Some just simply want to walk. Many don’t know why they are walking; they just had to do it and didn’t know why. Of the latter, most say they aren’t religious, yet curiously, when it comes time to receive their Compostela, their pilgrim certificate, they choose the religious rather than the secular, the beautiful Compostela written in Latin, the full-blown, unapologetically Roman Catholic certificate of pilgrimage complete with Saint and halo and swirls. And of all the pilgrims I met, I believe the latter, the ones who state their atheism outright, are some of the most beloved. I have no proof of this, it’s just something whispered to me somewhere along the meseda as I met yet another of the “Godless” (their words), some of whom literally ran to Saint James.
So how does one walk the Camino? It’s stunningly obvious. One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. Sometimes giving a hand, sometimes taking a hand. Always, always asking for enough strength to make it up the next hill (or down, which is far more difficult). And when adversity strikes – we had a deadly stomach flu in the meseda, which almost stopped our trek – stop, rest, regroup, see what other ways one can make this trek.
I was told that the Camino is of three parts – joy, death, renaissance; the initial joy of companionship, physical strength and challenge, the death of oneself as one joins the rhythm of the landscape, the seasons, the weather, and ceases to think (this happens sometime in the late 2nd or 3rd week as one enters the meseda, and the final renaissance of the spirit as one nears the end of the journey. The same person told me that the real pilgrimage begins once one is home. A priest who blessed us all at a pilgrim mass in Granon, told us that while we walked towards Santiago, we walked westward into our shadow and that when we returned home, we would be leaving our shadow behind. He said we would be new people. I believe him.
And now we are home, I often hear the words, “I’d love to do the Camino but….” (fill in the blank with bad back, bad knees, overweight, no time, can’t afford to etc. etc.), then I think about the blind pilgrim with her seeing eye dog, the pilgrim with the prosthetic leg, the pilgrim who had no legs but who had a special bicycle that towed his wheelchair, the 84 year old that walked 10 kms a day pushing his little wheel barrel, the two year old in his backpack whose parents, like us, went without income for several months and planned for several years, and of course, a little ten year old who never once said she didn’t want to walk, and who even when direly ill and was offered a bus to Santiago, said, “no, I want to walk”. This pilgrim, clad in pale blue from top to bottom, already knew the gifts of the Camino – the comradely, the little birds, the wild dogs, the fields of wheat and blood poppies, the dust and anarchy and beauty of northern Spain, and ultimately, the chance to lay her head against the shoulder of Saint James, in a shadowy cathedral, still so far away.
Suzanne Steele
July 31st, 2007
This trek is also a fundraiser for the Greater Victoria Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, as a thank you for our daughter’s life. If you feel inclined, please visit our online site and make a donation. http://trek4babies.wordpress.com You may also see photos from our trek and read about our trek at this website as well.
Thank you
(Suzanne Steele, Fred Speckeen and Ella Speckeen were members of OSP from 2003-2005)
