One of the best days on the Camino began, for me, with a scramble to eat
breakfast amid the mess of pilgrims crowded into the Albergue’s tiny kitchen. I
came downstairs to find pure chaos as the hospitaleros attempted to keep the
toast, coffee, jam, and sundries stocked and the pilgrims crowded around two
tables for breakfast while also attempting to not be in the way. I saw Brother Sam and Ewan the Irish guy but
couldn’t find a seat near them, instead I slipped some toast and butter into a
napkin and went outside to the benches to eat.
Today I’d walk up to the Iron Cross, and wasn’t sure exactly for what I
was seeking forgiveness. 2012 had
brought so much: the totally unexpected end of my relationship with Anne and my
exit from Boone – in effect, saying goodbye to the first and strongest place
I’d felt like I had a home and an adult life oriented toward a future of happy
aging, community, and place; working as the Clinical Assistant at Second Nature
and learning more and working harder than I’d done in years; living extremely
simply with a determined focus on people, health, joy, and faith for most of
the year; embracing change rather than falling into self-pity and grief. I knew that I had much to atone for, but my
early morning reflections brought only gratitude, as cheesy as that
sounds.
David the Hospitalero and Sam came outside into the courtyard, bracing
themselves against the early morning chill, and I also got up to say my goodbye
to Rabanal. David chose to walk us to
the edge of town (really only a few hundred yards away) before bidding us
farewell, and Sam and I walked on. He
invited me to walk with him since we’d missed out on our conversation the night
before, and I happily agreed. We climbed
from the outskirts of town up into grey clouds and very North Carolina-like
mountains, quickly rising above the early morning fog and finding ourselves
embraced by mists and light rain alternating with brief bursts of sunlight
through the clouds. Pastures, hardwood
fences, and broken-down rubble houses were strung along the Way, and the
morning was both quiet and full of promise.
We stopped in the first village for coffee, finding Ewan inside, and as
Sam ducked into the bathroom I paid for the coffees and sat down, happy and
grateful to offer him something for his companionship. Pilgrims came in and out, and we moved on
quickly, eager to both reach the summit and the Cross, and make our way to
points further.
I don’t think I’ll talk about our conversations in detail. Even now, it feels private and intimate, and
I don’t want to reduce Sam’s mentorship with particulars. What I will say is that I took away a deep
sense of joy as a response to the gospels, both in his happy fervor and my own
intuitions; a joyful and new understanding of Confession/Reconciliation; and a
sense of ‘rightness’ in my question of religious discernment. God’s presence in that conversation, more
than anything, convinced me that even if seminary isn’t in my future, I feel
most right, most fulfilled, most joyful, and most alive, when immersed in a
life of faith – whether that be in conversation, action, contemplation, or
gratitude at the mundane. I think that’s
a powerful sign; I want to trust the message.
As the Camino crested the mountain ridge and began to slope downward, to
villages half-seen in the clouds and wet with mist, I said goodbye to Sam in a
town halfway between Rabanal and Molinaseca where I anticipated staying for the
night. After lunch and watching many
pilgrims come through and move on, and after talking to a beautiful Czech woman
over coffee who committed to pressing on despite her obvious respiratory
infection, I slung my pack back on and hit the trail.
The Camino drifted in and out of small, Irish-style villages mostly
empty of people, the only indications I wasn’t lost being the yellow arrows
pointing me toward creekbeds, alleys, horse paths, and confusing twists and
turns through small coves and untilled farmland. For a while I
walked behind an elderly French couple with whom I shared no common
language, but we smiled at each other as we passed each other back and forth,
and they took half my roll of cookies when we stopped in the same field for
lunch.
By the time I got within viewing distance of Molinaseca, visible below
the steeply dropping trail and over a river, I was exhausted. I’d burned through the last 10 kilometers in
less than 2 hours, but as I got closer I saw a familiar balding figure in front
of me, shuffling along. I caught up to
Brother Sam and we finished the walk into town together, choosing to stay at a
private Albergue on the far end of town as it promised no bunk beds and a
common meal downstairs.
As we were checking in, familiar face after familiar face shuffled in –
the Asian couple, Ewan, the Canadians, a middle-aged pair of Coloradans who had
begun the Camino in Astorga, and a bubbly-faced Chinese student I recognized
from his frequent cigarette breaks along the way. I spent the afternoon exploring Molinaseca (a
beautiful town crouched above the river like something out of a Disney fairy
tale, but EMPTY, lonely, and strange), sharing the laundry with an awkward,
fussy man from California, and taking
advantage of the patio to read and drink coffee (of course).
Dinner downstairs was sneakily impressive – one of those meals you don’t
expect much from, but turns into a massive feast of both epic proportion and
amazing quality, served family style like some soul food restaurant in the
South. I drank entirely too much red
wine while talking politics with the Coloradans and stuffed myself full of
bread, soup, and flan, but when I went upstairs to my bed I couldn’t
sleep. I felt excited by the day, by the
feeling of ‘crossing over’ into some new state of being as we’d crested the
mountain range at the Iron Cross earlier, and I didn’t want to let it go to the
forgetfulness of sleep.
I haven’t said anything about the Cross itself. I’m reluctant to, because it’s one thing to
know that a cross exists, in largely the same place, where it has for 800
years, where pilgrims have piled rock after rock after rock until the mound
reaches high above your head, where like those thousands of pilgrims you climb
the mound, put your hand on the Cross and think about the events that have led
you there, where you find a place to leave your own rock, knowing you will
never forget the experience even as you move on and immediately fall into the
past, making way for the next penitent right behind you, smiling as you say
goodbye, carrying it with you gratefully rather than mournfully, a cross to
bear in your heart eternally… and it’s something else entirely to do this
thing, to live it.
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