October 21st, Santiago de Compostela:

              The greatest of this is love, to paraphrase and steal.  Seeing Susannah in front of the cathedral was a moment permanently impressed on my bones, and it couldn’t have happened any other way than that: the excitement, the giddy laughter, my poor attempts to hold back tears despite the massive grin on my face. 

               These moments are a blur – introducing Suse to my Virginia friends, the careful way she guided us through the busy squares past souvenir stands and down winding chaotic streets toward the former seminary turned pilgrim’s hostel in the distance, the hasty and scrambled attempts to recollect and explain all that had happened since we’d last seen each other on the dirty street in Sahagun.  She appeared stronger, calmer, more complete than I remembered.  She led us with confidence and helped me lose some of my sense of panic at having arrived and not knowing what came next.

               She had also bought proper pants and a new shirt. 

               We made our way to Seminario Menor la Asuncion, an enormous stone complex on the hills outside Santiago’s old city.  It struck me much like walking up to Downton Abbey – a building with multiple wings that loomed larger and larger, causing my neck to strain upward.  The entrance opened up into a grand stairway that branched off into each wing, but thankfully the hospitalero’s office was small and contained on the bottom floor – substantially less intimidating.  We checked in and were given the option of reserving beds for more than one night, then sent on our way.  It felt much like wandering around the Overlook Hotel; we went down stairs, up other stairs, across wings, until finally we found our beds in a large open room like a war-time hospital.  The windows granted us a view of the cathedral spires in the distance and the low grey clouds of Galicia rolling in.  I may have imagined it, but I could smell sea spray on the air. 

               Showered and composed, we found a meal of burgers and beer at a bar tucked into a stone alley way not far from the cathedral.  We sat at an outside table and sipped beers; I worked on convincing myself that I was finally in Santiago.  It was an amazing feeling to sit and enjoy the luxury of not needing to move on, of being right where I was supposed to be, with friends and companions.  Occasionally we saw pilgrims still carrying their packs come walking by and I struggled with a sense of loss, that my burden was no longer mine to bear.  I have not often been as wrong. 

               We went to the pilgrim’s office to get our credencials, proud pilgrims in a line, and I was surprised to see Pepper and Lisa in line ahead of us and pulled both of them close in a tight hug.  I bought a book from the office, a binding of the Cardinal’s most recent essays on the pilgrimage that I would read cover to cover on the plane ride home, tracing the words in my mind again and again hoping to never lose this sense of seeking, of longing for the spiritual life.  When I presented my pilgrim’s passport to the clerk and noted I had come to Spain for spiritual reasons, I felt both immensely proud and full, graced and blessed. 

               Later, there were tourist shops, massive mounds of frozen yogurt, several trips back and forth to the albergue in the rain, and an excursion to the shopping district to buy an actual pair of jeans.  So much of old Santiago was bristling with Camino-couture that the sudden imposition of normal stores, where I could buy Levis or pens or Chuck Taylors felt confusing and strange. 

               When the rain cleared, we made our way to the cathedral to go inside for the first time.  Approaching the building, which is beautiful beyond measure and was literally built by generations of prior pilgrims, was intimidating in a way I have trouble describing.  I wanted to do it right, for it to be perfect, sublime.  Yet I knew it was the wrong time, that I’d go back the next day for the pilgrim’s mass and hear my pilgrimage named by the priest with all the others, to officially become part of the roll call of history, to take my time.  This day I bustled through, looked in awe and wonder at the transept and the altar, the side chapels, became annoyed at tourists flashing photos and jostling past me in fancy coats and expensive shoes, fought the desire to run out and reclaim my God, the God of the quiet road behind me. 

               I did go to the tomb that first day – I shuffled down into the small room facing St. James the Apostle’s coffin, underneath the altar.  There was a kneeler in front, and the tiny area was packed with tourists who ignored the posted signs and took pictures anyway.  I wanted nothing more than a few minutes by myself with James, with the remains of the man who had known Christ in his time on earth, with the physical focus of the entire Camino, but I wasn’t going to get it that day, so I left. 

               In the gift shop I picked through little things I thought my family would like – mainly St. James medallions and rosaries, small trinkets that seemed better suited to my time in Spain than anything large and grandiose.  I browsed in a sense of sadness and loneliness, wondering how I’d ever bring this sense of spiritual immediacy home across the ocean. 

               I ran into Robert from South Carolina, the man who wanted to be a Jesuit, loud and drunk as I’d last seen him, a sweaty, happy reunion that began and ended as quickly as lightning and he was back out the door headed toward somewhere else.  I chose to leave the church from a side entrance and found myself face to face with Father Samuel, the Franciscan, who gave me his email address and told me to be sure to contact him to finish our conversation about religious vocation.  I often, often think of his abiding sense of presence and peace in that moment, his witness to spiritual joy that did more to point me in the direction of God than any evangelism.  We hugged and said goodbye in the doorway of the church, and it felt right. 

               These images and impressions are scattered, fragmented, abrupt.  It’s how it was – there isn’t a better way to describe the end of a pilgrimage in a place like Santiago.  That night I joined Susannah and the Virginians for a proper dinner of pulpo in the old town (pulpo, by the way, is damn delicious although after a pound of octopus I was tentacled-out) and we made our way to a bar for dessert and coffee.  That evening felt much like any other night in a city with good friends: a little too much wine, a little too much food, plenty of laughter and a long walk home after dark.  My physical pilgrimage was over.  In ways I could not know, my spiritual pilgrimage had only just begun.

               I’ve been reluctant to write about the Camino over the last month, partially because I’ve been reflecting on the past year more deeply than may be healthy.  It is hard to look back at myself and my expectations of having successfully become a peregrino; in many ways I’ve failed myself in the last year. 

               There are things I couldn’t know then, unexpected events and changes.  In Spain I would not have guessed that in less than two months after returning to the U.S. I’d have become estranged from my father due in part to the experiences I had on Camino.  I couldn’t know that we still would not be speaking nearly a year later.  I couldn’t know that Christmas 2012 would be one of the darkest periods of my adult life, resulting in what might accurately be called a nervous breakdown – or that from that point I’d work to leave my job of 5 years in the wilderness of North Carolina to settle in my college town and begin working with an even more troubled population of children.  I wouldn’t have known that within 6 months of returning home from Camino wondering if I’d enter seminary, that I’d replay one of my most unhealthy patterns in relationships – not once, but twice.  I wouldn’t have ever guessed that the community I found in Athens would be the most joyful, wonderfully exciting and engaging incarnation of town I’ve seen; I wouldn’t have known that I’d be lucky enough to get an amazing tattoo honoring the Camino that feels like it’s always been there, covering my whole damn shoulder.  I certainly would never have guessed that Pope Benedict would resign and be replaced by a pope who makes me proud to be a Catholic and whose actions confirm and reinforce the church I know and saw every day on the Camino.  In many ways, I went to Spain with one question in mind – whether or not to enter religious vocation – and returned with scores more questions unanswered and unresolved.  But I’m more comfortable in the confusion, in the doubt and difficulty, in the failure and uncertainty, because of my time on pilgrimage.  I know exactly what kind of spiritual life I want, and I know what it takes to get there.  Trust that God’s plans are better, and harder, and more challenging, than your own. 

October 21st, Arriving at Santiago de Compostela (21 kilometers):

               The last morning of my Very Long Walk, I got up and slipped out onto the Camino and into the darkness.  Fittingly, very fittingly, the trail soon plunged me into a eucalyptus forest that blotted out all light and felt for all intents and purposes like plunging into a cave.  My feeble headlamp barely illuminated the immediate area around me and I began to feel uneasy.  The forest stretched in all directions and dampened all sound, and I felt nothing more as if I’d left the Camino and found myself in a dark cave where I was afraid and lonely.

               It hit me then, the proverbial ton of bricks.  I reached up and switched my headlamp off and stood quiet in the darkness for a few minutes, and when I turned my light back on I kept it on the low red light, trusting the path, the arrows of the Camino, the footprints of pilgrims, and God. 

               I’ve read, discussed, taught, and pontificated on the Hero’s Journey for years at work.  It was taught to me by the therapist for whom I worked, and I helped teach it to countless students and staff during my time in the woods.  I’ve read variations, accounts, analyses.  I’ve talked until blue in the face to parents of students about the Hero’s Journey.  But this was the first time I really felt it, and with such a direct metaphor it was almost ridiculous.  A month before, I’d felt pulled to a foreign land, I’d left everything I knew that was comfortable and safe, I’d jumped into a situation I did not know would not destroy me, and I’d been taught lessons that had reshaped me into a new person.  And here I was, walking into the cave, afraid of what I’d find. 

               I had no idea what ending the Camino would be like, how it would affect me.  I had gone searching for meaning in an event, a journey, and I was looking directly down the path at my journey’s end.  The event would finish, and what would I be left with?  Would I return back home changed?  Would my experiences further separate me from the people and places I knew and loved?  Or would I carry the Camino with me in joy and love and return home to thrive and grow? 

               I came out of the eucalyptus and into a field of grass, under a perfectly clear dark sky dripping with stars.  The moment was perfect – both so foreign, so filled with wonder and joy, so connected to the historical pilgrimage of which I’d become a part… and simultaneously so familiar.  As a teenager I often snuck out of my house to lie on my back in a hayfield looking up at the stars, lost in the feeling that if I wished hard enough I’d find myself in a different time, with different people, in a different history.  I think I started to feel the presence of God first in those moments.  It was perfect, singular, and complete.

               This was the last time my Camino held onto the feeling of exploration.  As the sky grew light and the Camino wove more and more into suburbs and the outskirts of Santiago, I could see less grass, fewer views unobstructed by gas station signs and apartments, but I didn’t mind.  The pilgrims had fallen into the final slide toward Santiago and my excitement was growing.  I ran into the Virginia ladies, thankfully, as I don’t remember now if we’d planned to come into Santiago together.  I was so grateful for the company, for companions, and their giddy energy infected me as we bounced along the path.  We co-opted a Taylor Swift song for our own ends, “We are going going going, to Santiago!”  I was clown-like with joy. 

               We stopped at a café just on the edges of the ‘souvenir’ bubble: there were stands selling all manner of Santiago and pilgrimage-themed kitsch outside and I realized I’d soon have to buy my family gifts even though I had no idea how to fit anything more into my backpack.  Breakfast was massive, and delicious, and the coffee served by the barista was American-sized, which meant twice as large as the normal Spanish cups.  I didn’t complain, even when she asked us if we were hiking the pilgrimage because we’d seen ‘The Way’ with Martin Sheen.  Ridiculous!  We were hardened pilgrims, veterans of nearly 500 miles of Northern Spain, compatriots of 1000 years of pilgrims.  But we laughed, and walked on.  Soon after we passed Angela and Martina having their own breakfast, and I took a snapshot that remains one the ‘iconic’ images in my head of life on the Way: two pilgrims, strong, taking breakfast on a stone wall, focused, flush with the walk.  I wanted to grab their hands and kiss them on the face out of exuberance and camaraderie.

               We passed Monte de Gozo, the Hill of Joy, atop the final hill prior to the plunge downward into Santiago de Compostela.  We stared at a giant abstract sculpture there, surrounded by tourists shuffling off their buses, and peered through the fog to the spires of the Cathedral de Santiago several kilometers away.

            We made our way into the city proper where I tossed my hiking poles into the first available garbage bin.  We passed sculpture upon sculpture signifying the Camino’s history, including a massive tribute to famous historical pilgrims replete with almost life-sized reliefs.  We debated checking out the hostels along the way and I didn’t put much effort into the process because I trusted that things would work out no matter what happened.  We found ourselves winding deeper and deeper into tight, compacted streets as the Camino left the modern sidewalks of the city outskirts and threaded into the comforting stone of the oldest part of Santiago.  The girls talked about running into the square holding hands when we finally reached the cathedral and I told myself I’d walk with dignity and grace and let the moment sink in. 

              And finally, like the sharp intake of breath, we came within sight of the square and I found my hand intertwining with Katie’s and all four of us galloped into the bright, open sunlight of the cathedral square, laughing and crying and gasping for air.  Santiago de Compostela, the cathedral, the shrine, the end.  I was within walking distance of the tomb of James the Apostle who had walked with Christ.  I was stopped in my tracks staring at the cathedral whose spires reached higher than I could comprehend, amid a massive stone square flanked by equally gorgeous buildings and full of other pilgrims buzzing with joyful energy.  I was there, and all I could do was smile, and fumble for my camera, and try to hold back tears.  There aren’t words. 

               And of course, inevitably, perfectly, I hear a shout across the square – “BLACKBERRY!!”  I’ll let the pictures say the rest.

October 20th, Arzua to Arca de Pino (23 kilometers):

            The next-to-last day.  I don’t want to finish this story now, and I certainly didn’t then, as I set out from Arzua headed to a town called Arca de Pino which I knew to be little more than a roadside stop in the home stretch to Santiago.  The guidebook suggested pushing through to the giant municipal albergue just above Santiago de Compostela so as to reach the cathedral early on arrival day, but I considered the options and made my choice:  I’d slow down by half a day to enjoy one last night of proper pilgrim life before plunging into the final moments, I’d stay a few days longer in Santiago instead of pushing to get to Muxia and Finisterre, and I’d arrive on a Monday instead of pushing for the larger Sunday pilgrim’s mass.  A quieter arrival, a slower arrival, was more my style.

               Susannah of the Musketeers had surprised me with an email saying she’d be there to meet me in Santiago, and I had powerful emotions about our upcoming reunion.  Make no mistake, I’d have both given up and had less joyful experience on the Camino without my early companions.  The Musketeers were integral to my life on pilgrimage, and I felt closest to Susannah in many ways.  At the same time, I’d had to use the time after we went our separate ways to dive deeper into the spiritual experience, and I was nervous that when I saw her again, it wouldn’t feel like the same magic.  I was so eager to see her again, but I couldn’t shake that worry that I’d be different in a way that would harm our friendship.

               The hike between the two towns was pleasant, but unremarkable.  It felt like such a streamlining of the best parts of the Camino – I was strong, had my trail legs strongly beneath me, and the parts of the day that stood out were the way in which all the familiar, smiling faces clustered at the bars and cafes along the way, giddy with the prospect of finishing but with a certain sadness.  I could pick up the first conversations of people’s plans for after Santiago, of return trips home and further journeys, of logistics of flights and trains, the shadow of a Camino-less world looming.  I had a moment with Joe from Korea at a roadside café, sharing a table and sipping coffee yet again, as we tried and failed to communicate the complicated feelings around being ‘almost done’.  I wanted to hug him, to take his hand and tell him that I loved him for his cigarettes and smile and bright hiking shoes.  I wanted to somehow tell him that sharing this experience changed my life; I had to settle for a nod, a smile, and a slap on the back. 

               On the trail I fell deep into my rosary for most of the day, praying for my family and trying to wrap my heart around the immense gratitude I felt.  I couldn’t help thinking about what it would be like to return home to my job and my family; I couldn’t know then that within a few months of coming home I’d leave my job for one even more difficult and rewarding, that my father and I would become estranged partly due to the changes I experience in Spain, that I’d go through the darkest part of my adulthood and come through alive and happy. 

               I passed the 25 kilometer mark and entered into strange sections of forest with ferns along the trail and giant flat-leafed trees – it was there that I caught up to Katie from Virginia and we walked the rest of the day together.  I could tell it was her from her giant floppy hat and loose-limbed walk, and it was just the right moment to drag me out of my maudlin thoughts and back into the present. 

               When we came to Arca de Pino, we completely missed it and kept walking into a eucalyptus forest for half an hour before doubling back.  Apparently the town was off to the left of the Camino along a two-lane road; it did not look promising at all as we’d blown right past assuming the road was nothing more than access to a gas station.  On arrival the town wasn’t much more than I expected – maybe a mile of buildings along the road, several albergues under bright signs, a handful of shops selling pilgrim postcards and shells, and a municipal building at the end.  Katie and I walked to the end of the road to investigate a hostel she’d seen in the guidebook but ended up turning back as it didn’t look impressive or inviting from the street. 

               On a whim we looked into a hostel with a glass door advertising rooms for 10 euros.  I can’t find the name of it in my journal, but from that first moment on I called it The Finest Albergue of All Time.  There was a wide open foyer and a friendly man behind the desk who ushered us in and showed us the hostel, which had massive showers, a rooftop patio, wooden bunk beds surrounding a garden that stretched to the roof, and calming classical music on the embedded speakers.  We were inviteded to choose our own bunks!  Katie and I chose the ones nearest the garden.  I took the top, number 23, since my friend Katie had such a problem using ladders effectively.  It really would have been a shame for her to break an ankle less than 20 kilometers from Santiago. 

               After the obligatory shower I wandered up to the roof and drank a cup of coffee alone, finishing Housekeeping and enjoying the sunlight and blue skies.  I wandered out along the streets and spent some time getting postcards from a very friendly old woman who seemed to share my enthusiasm that Santiago was close.  I got snacks for the next day, conscious that it would be the last time I needed to buy provisions for the trail.  By the time I got back to the hostel, miraculously, there were more familiar faces than I could have hoped for: Gabrielle, Melissa and Mandie, the Vermonters, the young Aussies, Joe, Danielle and Jean-Louis, Martina and Angela from Germany. Lotus was just up the road from us.

The Last Supper:

               

             It really was inevitable: for the last meal before Santiago, instead of dining on authentic Spanish food, passing tapas round the table, nursing a fine red wine… I ate an entire pizza at a bar and got drunk on beer.  Myself, the Virginia gals, Lotus, the Germans, the Vermonters, the obnoxious Aussie couple from the laundry, two men named Darcy and Daniel, all ended up at a place in Arca advertising pizza and beer.  It seemed a fitting bookend to so many pilgrim menus, and we pulled tables together, harassed the waiter to no end, and laughed with each other until nearly closing time.  I used my paltry Spanish to attempt to order dark beer and ended up confusing the bartender to no end until I fumbled something to the tune of ‘Aleman stilo’ and he handed me a Mahou Negro.  There was an epic misunderstanding when Angela ordered a German dessert drink called a 43 y Leche.  In Germany it is apparently an appropriately-sized mixed drink of milk and a brown liquor over ice.  In Spain, it comes quart-sized and looks like this: 

               Dinner was perfect: excessive, giddy, and joyful.  I don’t know that I will ever have a better image in my mind of companionship, of such easy love for the people around me.  I ate too much, I drank too much, and I probably laughed too hard or told terrible jokes, but goddamn, I was happy.  

October 19th: Palas de Rei to Ribadiso/Arzua (26 kilometers):

Part Two

               After lunch was over and my plate cleaned, I spent some minutes watching the owner of the restaurant cook his famous pulpo in a giant pot in front of a window open to the street.  He was a large man, bald, full of energy and drenched in sweat, gleefully shaking boiled cephalopods at the people passing by.  I wasn’t sure about his marketing strategy, but I guess if octopus is your thing…

              

               Lotus and I walked on; I said my goodbyes for the afternoon and moved through Melide quickly.  I wanted to be certain to see one of the oldest cross monuments in Iberia still preserved at a crosswalk, but I was also eager to get back to the contemplative countryside and away from the tourists.  At this point in the Camino it was becoming more and more difficult to tell the day-trippers from the pilgrims who’d walked the whole Way.  Some were easy to spot – their frantic movements, matching unblemished daypacks and unbroken boots giving them away – but there were also plenty of faces that were just unfamiliar, faces I couldn’t be sure I hadn’t passed 200 miles before or slept across from in some meseta albergue.  I was anxious for quiet, for small gatherings. 

               Melide was beautiful, I’ll grant you.  Palm trees sprouted up in the little squares and parks, and there were twisting stone alleys branching off the main thoroughfare that I did take some time to explore. 

               By ‘explore’ I meant get lost.  I did go in search of the church, hoping to stop for a rosary or afternoon mass, and although I could easily see the spires and the cross reaching up above the buildings around me, it seemed that street after street either took me away from where I wanted to go or deposited me back on the Way.  It felt like a scene in a film where the protagonist winds his way through a garden maze or labyrinth, unable to escape.  The Way kept coming back to find me, and I felt no fear or panic, not even frustration, only a sense of amusement and acceptance of the message I’d received.  I’d gone in search of a cathedral, of quiet reflection and simplicity, and found only the path, with its’ dirt and noise and joy.  I can be content with that, I think. 

               I did make my way out of Melide, crossing the 50 kilometer mark on my way to Ribadiso/Arzua.  The Camino markers were becoming more and more marked with graffiti, but I’d come to love the scribbles and tags of other pilgrims.  Let me underline this observation – the Camino de Santiago is by no means a pristine route, an unmarked path.  I’ve read many complaints on message boards about the trash, the asphalt sendas approaching a major city, the graffiti, and the roadside altars.  It’s true.  All of those things exist in abundance.  Walking the Camino is in no way similar to the AT, or any other long wilderness trail. 

               I love the graffiti, the sheer evidence of other pilgrims.  I love that in our search for elevated faith, for a pilgrim’s experience, we were gross, and dirty, and sloppy, and unavoidably human.  I adore our common filthiness, our hard edges and heavy smells.  So there. 

               The suburb soon turned back into farmland and the weather was sunny and pleasantly cool, reminding me strongly of early fall in North Carolina.  I remember walking along curvy dirt roads next to busted wood fences that looked just like those I’d walked along as a child.  The Way took me to a small stream next to which was a picnic table and my friend Katie from Virginia, lounging in her hat and purple shirt.  We decided to walk the rest of the way to Arzua and she told me she was meeting Mandie and Melissa there; it was easy to fall in with her and I was looking forward to some banter in English, some human interaction to bring me out of my head and into the joyful present. 

               Arzua wasn’t much more than a spot in the road; there was the municipal albergue crouching over the river just across a stone bridge; I could see pilgrims lying in the grass on the bank underneath drying laundry smoking cigarettes.  Katie and I walked on and stopped into a private hostel called Caminantes slightly up the hill; I immediately committed my 10 euros based on the beautiful wood beams, washer/dryer, and the beautiful girl behind the desk.  Katie and I made a plan to split laundry later and I got myself situated in a back room and tried to sort out the shower situation.  The bathroom was somehow situated between three different rooms, each with their own entrance, and hosted both shower stalls with open ceilings and toilets.  I could not discern if it was male, female, or both, or even if I was supposed to lock the door.  I figured it didn’t matter all that much and hopped into one of the shower stalls. 

               Before I was done, someone got into the one next to me.  It was a woman; she was talking.  I presumed she was talking to me, in English, so I spoke back, “Hello, yes?”.  No response, but her conversation continued, unaltered.  It was Lotus, and she was either talking to herself or singing along to some music I couldn’t hear.  I beat a hasty retreat, not wanting to get caught in an unclothed conversation with her or anyone else. 

               Laundry with the Virginians was an event worth remembering – the hostel had one washer/dryer and after we put our things in to dry we had to fend off an older Australian couple from dumping our stuff to make room for their own.  They were shady, looming in the corners and skulking our secadora, ready to pounce.  We held them off, crouched on the couches nearby and talking about ‘planking’, of all things. 

               For dinner everyone in the town seemed to congregate in the one restaurant, a high-ceilinged, stone affair with wide wooden tables and televisions incongruously mounted in the corners like a sports bar back home.  Dinner with the Virginians was good, and hot, and loud – a room filled with familiar faces and rapidly emptying wine bottles, the space filling with the expanding joy of pilgrims close to the end of the Way.  There was a giddiness present, and when we realized the televisions above were playing uncensored footage of what appeared to be bowel surgery, it was all the funnier for it. 

                I walked up the road a way and looked back down on the town, knowing that this would be the absolute last of the village-like stops on the way before the end and my meeting with St. James.  It was almost too perfect, looking downhill at Arzua and feeling the impending conclusion over my shoulder.  There were stars before and behind me as I made my way to the final Compostela.  I imagined the way stretching back all the way to Pamplona, the kilometers and pilgrims stretching out in both distance and history, grateful again for everything that had led me to this moment on the Camino de Santiago.  Impossibly I tried to feel all of it at once, and failed, finding only flashes of faces in laughter, the echoes of struggles and heartaches on the Way, the details floating up to the surface and quickly drifting away.  Perched on the precipice of finishing the physical part of my pilgrimage, I couldn’t help but feel reflective.  I was starting to formulate my opinion of the pilgrimage as the best example of a fully Christian community I’ve ever seen, welcoming all with compassion and kindness, pulling us toward our common humanity, driving us relentlessly toward the spiritual, merciful aspects of our being.  

October 19th: Palas de Rei to Ribadiso/Arzua (26 kilometers):

Part One:

I wake up to the cold and the dark; Palas de Rei in the early morning hours feels apprehensive, like as soon as I begin my morning walk I’ll leave behind the last few stages of the journey and begin to tidy things up.  There are just over 70 kilometers left before reaching Santiago de Compostela and the tomb of St. James.  Seventy is a very… comprehensible number.  Seventy is a number that scares me, because seventy is not very far from zero. 

I’ll be honest – I don’t remember breakfast.  I’m pretty certain I ate quickly and left quickly, eager to enjoy the chilly morning.  Those expectant hours before the sun comes up have always been some of my favorites; in boot camp we would rise early and go on long ruck marches when it was so dark the only thing I could see was the vague outline of the person in front of me, when the fog and the damp muted the sounds of people marching and I fell easily and quickly into a meditative trance of breathing, walking, and bearing weight. 

I did take a minute to stand at that statue of St. James.  I’d read that the last few towns before Santiago become very crowded and suburban, and I wasn’t ready to abandon these small rural icons to the past.  I knew based on my time in Burgos, Leon, and Sarria that in Santiago I’d be overwhelmed with religious imagery, but I felt more kinship to the silent dignity of this James. 

A digression: In O’Cebreiro, prior to my gastrointestinal explosions, I’d picked up a slim book titled A Christian Interpretation of the Way of St. James by the Archbishop of Burgos.  It was a kind volume, at once deeply considered and immediately passionate, touching deftly on all the reasons this pilgrimage had called to believers for a millennium.  In it, the Archbishop illuminates the James who said ‘yes’ to Christ – and connects his faith to our own as pilgrims who have embarked on a journey of uncertainty and doubt, believing that we will find our faith transformed in the process.  I deeply identified with this description of James, as a person who chose to affirm rather than deny.  Faith in that choice is one of my most fundamental beliefs – that despite doubt, challenge, hardship, or fear, ‘yes’ always brings us closer to the truth.  Yes is chaotic, and dirty, and often gets us into trouble… but yes is right. 

The first hour or so goes by quickly as I hurry off in search of the nearest place I can get coffee; by the time the morning has warmed to the sun I’ve found myself trudging through eucalyptus groves and dodging tourists and day trippers (and where were my Musketeers to help me mock them with misappropriated Beatles?).  There is a long, gloriously muddy stretch of trail lifted straight from the Blue Ridge that reminds me of how soon I’ll be heading back to the U.S., and, fittingly, I spend some time walking with Lisa, Pepper, and their Irish friend.  Lisa and I talk about our love for North Carolina and working in therapy, and I find myself going on about AA/NA work at such length I become embarrassed.  Lisa and Pepper have a complexity to their relationship that makes me both jealous and proud.

Approaching Melide I begin to hear snippets of conversation among the pilgrims about the pulpo there.  Now that I have come properly and fully into Galicia, it’s more or less expected that I try the regional octopus.  Every time I think of it, though, I get that sick feeling in my stomach from O’Cebreiro and balk.  The descriptions don’t really do a great job of selling the pulpo to begin with – boil an octopus, chop it up, and drench it in paprika and olive oil.  There you go, pulpo! 

As the Camino reaches that weird state just before a proper city, where it leads you out of fields and into nonsensical paths adjacent parking lots and abandoned buildings, I see a figure ahead of me shuffling along.  Lotus.  She’s got on her gardening hat, she’s dragging her hiking poles from one wrist, and she’s flapping her shirt up and down frantically in what I imagine is an attempt to cool off.  I have that moment where I wonder if I should slow down and let her go on, or try to stealthily pass.  Instead I sidle up to her and start talking. 

Correction – as soon as she recognizes me, she begins chattering away at me about the heat and smoothly segues onto pulpo. Apparently, THE best restaurant for octopus in Spain is just ahead, and I must join her for lunch. 

I really do try to think of ways to escape.  I run the list of every possible excuse or reason for moving on, but before I can pick the best out, I find myself saying “Lotus, I’d love to join you for lunch”.  Spoiler alert: I don’t order pulpo.  I leave that to Lotus, but I do order one of the generic American-inspired dishes off the menu, something with potatoes, egg, a hamburger, and a coke, and we sit at a table on the street watching pilgrims together.  We talk about Asheville. We talk about the weather.  We talk about how Lotus is a homeopath.  We talk about religious universalism and Lotus’ ill-defined ‘everything is the same’ philosophy.  We talk about all sorts of things I don’t particularly want to talk about, and I barely get one word into the conversation. 

Lunch with Lotus is one of my favorite experiences on the Camino.  Lunch with Lotus was a significant religious experience.

I’m not joking, there’s no hyperbole in that statement.  Just a few weeks before that day, Lotus was a person I actively dreaded and whom I’d have avoided at all costs.  She ‘polluted’ my pure pilgrim experience.  She annoyed me, was off-putting, and talked about things I didn’t like to talk about.  I felt incidental in her presence. 

Nothing about my surface-level interaction with Lotus changed in those weeks.  She acted in exactly the same way I remembered – and if anything, I ought to have had less patience for her.  I was hot, I wanted to hold onto each moment of solitude and contemplation before reaching Santiago, and I didn’t want to listen to Lotus’ trials and tribulations.  Something had changed in me, however.  I’d been doing lots of thinking about how the pilgrimage would affect me, would leave a lasting impression, would bring me closer to how I want to live out my faith.  I’d been doing lots of planning.  And in the moment with Lotus it was so easy as to be almost unrecognizable – the petty annoyances were there, but they were unimportant.  I was able to sit at the table, break bread with this woman who I found difficult and abrasive, and simultaneously recognize and love her.  Compassion felt effortless, and natural, and right. 

My experience was religious because I can’t deconstruct that moment any further.  I said ‘yes’ to lunch; completely unrelated to the circumstances of our relationship I felt us to be part of the same body, the same creation, and my instinct was neither fear nor suspicion, but love.  So here’s to Lotus – the obnoxious, self-absorbed, grandiose, forgetful, crass, sometimes topless, face of Christ.  

October 18th, Portomarin to Palas de Rei (25 kilometers):

My uphill walk from the quiet simplicity of Portomarin began in rain.  I had not anticipated more of the sheets of rain as I’d seen coming off the mountain passes near O’Cebreiro, but as I readied myself to step out into the darkness of another 6AM morning in Spain, there was a crowd of pilgrims by the doorway, reluctant to venture forth.  I politely nudged my way through and plunged into the morning downpour.  I was nestled deep in my rain shell and rain-proof pants.  I was in a cocoon of mental quietude left over from the night before.  I was impermeable.

Fifty meters up the street I ducked my head into a bar/cafe on the right side of the street, already soggy.  I had that paranoia that sets in when you know that your boots are waterproof but, even so, between the knowledge that you’re walking through puddles and the chill of the water all around, you convince yourself you feel a leak.  This did not bode well for the day’s walk, as I was on a fairly tight timetable to reach Santiago, meet up with my friend Susannah, and have time to make my flight home.  

The cafe was too brightly lit and smelled of cigarettes; the old Spanish man sitting at the bar and the man behind the counter both seemed cut from a Cold-War espionage film: wide lapels, dodgy facial hair, small eyes, and some slight outward hostility.  Some pilgrims had already claimed territory at the tables, but as I dropped my pack and hiking poles next to the door and looked around, I saw the Brits, Chris and Liz, already warming their hands around coffee cups.  I gave them a quick nod and ordered at the bar; before I finished speaking the man was already throwing fresh bread into a skillet to make my toast while simultaneously working the espresso machine.  

Breakfast was hot, and plentiful, and good.  I ate slowly, hoping the weather would break if I lingered long enough, and saw several of my fellow pilgrim friends come and go.  When I saw the light begin to shift toward day, I gathered my things to go and made a quick detour toward the bathroom - mistake.  I thought I’d seen the most frightening bathroom in Spain already, but this one was some sort of murder closet/outhouse hybrid.  I could wait.

As I walked into the morning, the weather did, in fact, seem to ease.  I remember the hiking as easy and natural, even unremarkable.  The landscape generally followed an uphill path toward Sierra Ligonde and looked like nothing so much as my youthful visions of The Shire.  When I was an awkward, lonely ten year old gifted with academic ability but few other valuable skills, one of my schoolteachers took a mercy on me one day and gave me a book.  I remember she took me aside after class and told me that I was so good at reading that I had earned the privilege of reading an extra book for class.  She told me the book was special to her when she was my age, and that she picked it out specifically for me.  The book was The Hobbit.  

It was a fateful meeting, J.R.R. Tolkien and myself at age ten.  Since then, my imagination immediately reaches for a few key things when I want the image of an idyllic, fanciful place: greenness, and fog, and stone, and laughter.  The twisting walk from Portomarin to Palas de Rei offered those things in abundance; even in the stretches where the Camino intersected with roads and development, it quickly diverted back toward secret pockets of trail between homes and low stone walls, sharp rocky paths abutting sheep fields, and clusters of trees hiding the promise of other creatures, other worlds.

During my walk there weren’t many places to stop, however, at the roadside cafes I leapfrogged with the Brits, the two young Australians, the older Vermonters, Joe, and the Wonderful Quebecois (Jean-Louis and Danielle).  I stopped at one cafe for brunch and found it so crowded inside that I took my tuna empanada outside to the partially covered stone barn and ate my food on a wooden bench next to piles of hay, manure, and rusty old farm tools.  In the afternoon I again found Chris, Liz, and the Australian gents at a cafe and joined them for two rounds of Cola-Cao - perfectly suited to the day’s drizzling weather.

On one stretch I walked purposefully alone, holding on to my rosary and trying to begin to appreciate the length and distance I’d come along the Camino thus far, when I was approached and accosted by a pilgrim I’d seen off and on in the last several weeks.  He was tall, dirty, French, and reportedly walking the Camino without any money.  I already had a resistance in my gut to him: although he was walking on the kindness of others and completely unafraid to approach strangers to ask, outright, for a meal, wine, or cigarettes, I felt resistant because I never saw him in want of cigarettes or alcohol.  The night prior after mass, I watched him charge up behind the altar to ask the priest for money.  

I wasn’t really certain how to deal with him.  I’d experienced so much kindness and freedom from judgment on the Camino thus far, and my natural instincts and convictions told me to offer kindness without expectation.  On the other hand, after working in wilderness therapy for many years, I knew when I was being manipulated.  When the man approached me and began a conversation, I was polite but distant, wary of what he may want.  True to my expectations, he soon abandoned his questions about me and asked if I had a cigarette.  I said I did not smoke.  He asked again, and I told him, truthfully, I did not smoke.  He shrugged and picked up his pace; I decided to sit by the road for a while.  

For the rest of the Camino, he didn’t approach me.  Nearly a year later, I’m not certain what I should have done.  Obviously I did not have what the man wanted, but if I had been less reserved, potentially less rude, would our interaction would have been different?  If he had been more observant in respecting the church in Portomarin, would I have been better able to see Jesus in him?  I have no idea.  

Arriving at Palas de Rei was strange.  The Camino comes in on a downhill trajectory toward roadways and concrete; the town itself didn’t strike me as more than a stopping point on the way to Santiago.  I had heard, and was afraid, that the closer I one got to Santiago the more suburban the towns became.  On top of that, I came bustling in during siesta so other than a loud American group outside a bar, there were few sounds and little activity.  I more or less picked a hostel at random and went in to find myself in a downstairs full bar packed with pilgrims, many of whom I didn’t recognize.  This itself was disconcerting as it pointed toward the numbers of latecomers who were only finishing the last 100k.  I put down my euros, got my stamp, and was led up steep staircases to the top floor and placed in a bunk next to the window (overlooking the bus station and a laundry line festooned with someone’s underwear) atop my friend Trish from Australia.  There I met Dave from Vancouver who was very, very friendly, and blonde, and energetic, and re-introduced myself to Martina and Angela from Germany. This time there were no awkward moments but smiles and inquiries about their hikes.  I spent some time looking at Angela’s blisters with Martina and tried to assure her across the language barrier that covering the damn things with Compeed was probably a better bet than nursing them throughout the final stretch to Santiago.  

I spent some time wandering around the hostel, finding the Quebecois in the bar and sharing a dark beer which left me immediately tipsy and silly, coming across Lotus in the topmost floor insisting to the hospitalera (and to much eye-rolling of her roommates) that she needed to have the single bed underneath the skylight for reasons of health and safety, and eventually making my way to the streets outside.  There seemed to be one restaurant offering a pilgrim’s menu, so I walked in and was immediately made aware I was out of my element.  

The restaurant was well-decked out in proper dining form, and it was packed.  I stood there for a moment, quietly resigning myself to a probable meal of grocery store snacks and a soda, when Jean-Louis and Danielle came up behind me and pulled me into their group.  Somehow they’d connected with the Vancouverite and another random Dave, and insisted I join their table.  

The meal itself was loud, and hectic, and I struggled to find a way to work in any words of my own; the conversation flowed between English and French quicker than I might follow.  I stuffed myself on such amazing Caldo Gallego and homemade bread that the mediocre chicken course went barely noticed.  Our table sank bottle of wine after bottle of wine with seemingly little effect, until one of the Daves noticed the alcohol content on the bottle was listed as 4%, placing the wine somewhere in the category of weak grape beer.  Naturally, this discovery called for more wine, and as the waiters didn’t seem prone to clear our table, or for that matter any table in the restaurant, we stayed until closing and loudly made our way back to the hostel with a few minutes to spare before lockout.  I do not remember going back in.  I do not remember walking up three flights of stairs.  I do not remember climbing into my bunk, and I do not remember falling asleep.  But I do remember a night open to starlight, a crisp bite to the air reminding me of the happiest nights as a soldier on watch at Ft. Jackson, and so much laughter.